


Building Vona

by negickapologist (neganstonguething)



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: AU, Graphic Sex, M/M, Slow Burn, Space AU, interplanetary boyfriends, maybe aliens, negan is an asshole, no zombies, space boyfriends, what are tags
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-06
Updated: 2017-08-30
Packaged: 2018-10-15 08:42:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 49,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10553400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neganstonguething/pseuds/negickapologist
Summary: The Earth is on it's last limbs, so NASA and a mysterious team they've paired with hatch an evacuation project. Rick is selected as one of the evacuees, where he is transported to a new planet--Vona. The project has a lot of growing, and he plays a big hand in doing so, but the man in charge there makes it kind of difficult.





	1. In Which Rick Accepts

**Author's Note:**

> This idea came to me in a dream. It was supposed to be a one-shot, but as I attempted to condense it all into one document, it just wasn't working. My mind kept coming up with more and more details, until I just threw my hands up, said "fuck it", and made it into a chaptered fic. It'll probably be a relatively slow-updating one, since my more primary fic at the moment is New World Order, but I'm pretty excited to get this one moving too, so we'll see!
> 
> Love you guys--hope you enjoy!

Judith won't stop crying. Rick can hear her, but he can't reach her. They're all confined to upright tube-like compartments that remind him of standing tanning beds. Rick's arms and legs are bound by leather straps, and on his face rests an oxygen mask. Even through the muffler of his own 'bed', he can hear Judith's sobs in the tube next to him, and Carl's even further away as he tries to tell his sister that she's going to be okay.

Rick hopes against hope that the decision to accept the offer given to him was a good one. He didn't have a lot of time to think about it, but even now, he finds himself repeating a mantra to himself, " _It was the right choice, it was the right choice..._ "

As the craft they're contained in starts to rumble, Rick closes his eyes and looks back on everything leading up until now.

_"...And you are...?"_

_"Philip Blake." Rick frowns at the man, even as he introduces himself. He has short blond hair and a black eye patch. He looks tired, so very tired. Tired and stern and like he's probably been through this spiel a million times. He reminds Rick of a cross between a door-to-door salesman and a lawyer. "I'm here to make you an offer that could save your life."_

_He's caught Rick at work, while Carl's at school and Judith's at daycare. Rick's office isn't much more than a desk, a bunch of file cabinets, and a window, but Philip has managed to work his way inside and pull the door shut behind himself._

_"I'm doin' alright, but thanks." Rick answers, focusing back on paperwork. He's just gotten back from patrolling and knows he'll be on documentation for at least the next handful of hours. He doesn't care to deal with Jack Dawson Slash Sparrow right now._

_Philip doesn't move, and there's an uncomfortable silence that follows Rick's refusal. Despite that, Rick keeps working. A good, solid minute passes before Philip speaks up._

_"What do you know about the state of the world today, Sheriff?"_

_Rick looks up from the stack of papers on his desk, unable to mask the exasperation on his face. "...I know enough. What kind of sales pitch is that?"_

_"It isn't a sales pitch." Philip responds, shaking his head. "Are you aware of NASA's most recent prediction for Earth?"_

_Of course Rick is. Everyone on this entire damned planet heard that broadcast. It'd popped up on every television channel and every radio station. It interrupted whatever anyone was doing, all so a serious voice, masked with a voice changer, could inform everyone that they needed to start counting their blessings, because the Earth was about to give in to all the pressure mankind has put on it. That children would not see many more school years, and engaged couples might not reach their wedding days. It had been unnerving and uncomfortable, and had sparked an outrage all over news stations._

_Rick had heard it on patrol, while watching for traffic stops. It had interrupted the broadcast on the police radio, and initially, it had been very alarming. Someone claiming to be from NASA had hacked broadcasts everywhere to distribute the warning, and at first, Rick really had thought it was a legitimate threat. But a handful of months down the line, he's not so certain anymore._

_Despite that, he humors the guy now. "You're talkin' about when they cut through every broadcast to tell us the world was about to end." The disbelief is thick in his voice, and he makes no effort to dampen it._

_Philip nods, and Rick can see disappointment in his one visible eye. "You're not taking it seriously."_

_"It's a pretty wild assumption." Rick shrugs. "And comin' out of nowhere like that, with no other speculation...makes it tough to absorb."_

_"Understandable." Philip leans back on one of the tall, gray filing cabinets behind him. "Most of the debate has been contained. Our government is grossly misguided."_

_Rick can at least agree with him about that. "So...your offer." He can't deny his curiosity, even if he's still not quite buying the whole scenario. This guy sure as hell doesn't seem like he's going to go anywhere until he gets to plead his case, anyway._

_Philip extends a manila file out to Rick. When the Sheriff takes it, he leans back against the filing cabinet once more. Rick opens it up, and finds himself staring at what looks like a blueprint. It's a ship--an actual spacecraft, and it's so surprising to him that he's being offered such a thing, even taking into account just how odd this whole experience is in general._

_"Evacuation." Philip explains, while Rick scans the different sheets of paper. It's all pretty detailed stuff. Words Rick doesn't understand are printed all over the paper, but he does recognize the word 'PASSENGERS' typed on one page, with a large circular room. It looks like windows are drawn into the walls, but when Rick looks more closely, he sees crudely-drawn people scribbled into the cylindrical 'windows'. It occurs to him after some studying that they're like upright chambers built into the walls._

_He turns his attention back up at Philip, a deep frown etched onto his features._

_"You're offerin' to take me to space?"_

_Philip nods slowly. "Sort of. Another planet, in another solar system. That means it orbits it's own Sun, which means we have energy, and the planet has water. We call it 'Project Vona', and it's been in the works for years before NASA's announcement."_

_Rick sighs and rests the file on his desk. He suddenly feels very tired. "...You have to understand how this sounds to a guy like me, right?"_

_For the first time since the two men have started talking, Philip smiles. It almost looks genuine, but Rick finds it hard to be sure--it's like he's hiding something behind that eyepatch. "I do. You're not the first to look at me like that. And I don't have much in the vein of proof that this is real. Not until you accept, at least."_

_Rick braves what he feels like a line between sane and insane in favor of hearing more. If anything, he's interested for Carl and Judith. If that prediction really did come from NASA, their lives officially have a termination date. Carl's just fifteen--he hasn't even gotten to graduate high school yet. And Judith is two. At this rate, she won't even get to see what preschool is like._

_So yeah, maybe he can listen...at least until things get too crazy to entertain._

_"Accept?" Rick finally retorts. "If this thing is actually really gonna happen, I'm gonna need a little more information. For example," he points to himself, "why me?"_

_"You and your family." Philip corrects. "I can't reveal the source, but I will point out that it was very important to them that you and your children be rescued from the hell that is this planet."_

_The conversation doesn't stop there. Even though Philip doesn't have Rick convinced, he suddenly unleashes a flurry of alarming facts about how life on Earth is growing less and less possible each and every day. The bee population, fracking, contamination of important landscapes, and that's just barely scratching the surface. According to him, people lose air and food and atmosphere more and more each day._

_The facts are there, too. Hot winters, tumultuous weather patterns, and indeed, a decline in population of many species. Global warming and the increase in earthquakes, these are things that have shown up in the news before. These are things that Rick understands to be true. These are things that, when put into light with other things, become serious and genuinely frightening._

_Philip doesn't make him answer right away. He leaves with him a phone number and lets him think about it. And Rick does. He picks up his kids, heads home, and as he throws a frozen dinner into the oven, genuinely finds himself wondering what Lori would have wanted them to do._

_Goddamn it, what would she have decided?_

_He spends a solid three days thinking about it. One night, Carl asks to spend the night with a friend, and Rick is afraid to let him. He does, and it's on that night, as he and Judith watch movies together and an earthquake strikes, that he decides it's time to call Philip back. The quake is small and does no physical damage to Rick's house or the neighborhood, but it's so widespread that it's made the news. It's officially something the media considers alarming._

_The hardest part about caving in to Philip's offer is that Rick is completely blind to any details unless he accepts. But he tries to tell himself that if all else fails, he can back out if something doesn't seem right. And although he wonders who recommended him to this 'Project Vona', he finds some level of blind trust in them._

_Or maybe it's desperation. Maybe he just wants everything to be okay._

_Either way, once Rick gives Philip the green light, details come in little by little. First, he and his children are measured, their body weights taken, and any allergies listed. Their bodies are stress-tested--yes, even Judith's. But once they pass with flying colors, they're shipped off to what looks like a hospital. At present, Rick thinks it's for analysis. But then, they're given IV fluids of some sort, and Rick can tell by how quickly his vision darkens that they're being drugged._

And then he wakes up in this thing. He doesn't know how much time has passed, but he's trapped. Judith screams from nearby, and when Rick allows his vision to adjust, he can see others in beds not unlike his circling the room. The glass dividing him and the room is thick, though, so the only things he can hear are Judith and Carl and the loud roaring of what he assumes to be engines.

Are they seriously about to take off?

Rick can't remember all the images of the blueprint he'd been shown, but he does know that they're in the room with the picture labeled 'PASSENGERS'. He doesn't hear a countdown or see any sign of _when_ they're going to lift off. It's just the engines blazing somewhere beneath him and Judith's sobs and Carl's attempts at reassurance.

The beds all recline in unison, tipping back what Rick assumes is about thirty degrees. He's shaking as the rumbling grows louder. He wishes he could hold Judith in his arms and soothe her cries, and he wonders what would have happened if he hadn't accepted. Are they going to die here? Would they have died there?

A force hits him like a slap in the face, sucking the air clean out of his lungs. It pushes down so violently that Rick now understands why the oxygen masks are on. He squeezes his eyes shut as the force grows stronger, and his hands ball into fists against the cushion behind him. He somehow manages to inhale, but the exhale is significantly more difficult.

It's just as his lungs feel like they're going to explode that he loses consciousness.

\- - - - -

"Vitals check out--he's good." A woman's voice, followed by a sigh, pulls Rick back into consciousness. He opens his eyes and sees a blonde with her hair tied back into a ponytail. She sports a tight black shirt, her puffy white suit folded down to rest around her waist. Her face is beaded with sweat--a definite sign that she's been hard at work for quite some time.

"Where...what..." Rick questions. He notices the bed is still reclined, but as the blonde deems him alright, she flips a switch that slowly brings it back into an upright position.

"Come on out...but do it slowly or you'll make yourself sick." She extends a hand, which Rick takes. He moves to step out onto a tile floor, and his legs almost instantly give out on him. The woman drops to her knees in front of him. Someone brings her something that looks kind of like a white fold-out chair, and she helps Rick into it. "It's alright. It's perfectly natural to be disoriented and weak after something this traumatizing."

"Somethin'..." Rick groans, raising a hand to his forehead. "Somethin' bein'...are we in a spaceship?"

The woman laughs. "Something like that."

"Where are my children?" Rick feels nauseated, but when he hears the shrill sound of Judith's voice screaming for him, it sobers him right up. She practically leaps into his lap and throws her arms around his neck. Carl makes his way over from behind her, and Rick sees the sickness in his face as he drops to his knees in front of him and wraps his arms around his father's waist.

Their fear and exhaustion only makes it more clear that they almost died. Carl is pale with nausea and Judith's burning up. On her forehead is a long, rectangular sticker that Rick can tell measures her temperature. For a moment, the three just wrap themselves up in one another.

The woman hasn't left their side, and when Rick looks up to meet her gaze, she slides her hands into her pockets. "Gravity is a powerful force, Mister Grimes. Your children are going to be alright--they'll need a few hours to recover, but they're going to be fine. I'll get you some water--you take it easy for now." She smiles warmly, and Rick sees by the little quiver in her lips that she's nervous as hell. "I'm Denise. Feel free to tell me if you need anything."

Rick nods, and then waves as she walks away.

The room is much larger than the blueprint could have ever predicted. It's circular and white--so fucking white--with those bed-things lining the wall all the way around, save for the metal staircase leading up. Rick sees that the staircase leads to three more levels of beds lining the walls, and people are hanging out on the staircases while they wait for their next instructions. From the looks of it, only about half of them have been released from their beds.

There's no view of the outside here. And going by the fact that they were drugged before they woke up here, Rick assumes they're not supposed to see. Despite that, when Denise returns with a bottle of water for Rick and his kids, he can't stop himself from asking.

"...Is this all?" He asks, and Denise hesitates, looking confused. "I mean, this room. We're gonna be here for three years--is this all we get?"

The information Rick and Philip had exchanged comes back to him there. Three years in space, and then they'd arrive on the planet they all call "Vona". Apparently, there's a massive terrarium that's in construction there. The ship Rick is on isn't the only one to make this trip. At present, they have two loads of passengers now carrying on a life on Vona. That's what's going to happen to Rick and his group when they arrive. So long as they do their part in producing food and supplies, they get their so-called evacuation.

But three years is a long wait, and Rick almost feels seasick right now. But, he realizes with some bitterness, there's no going back now.

"No." Denise smiles. "This room is just a small part of the ship. There's an order to everything, but you will get to see more, soon. We just have to make sure everyone's okay first."

Everyone's _not_ okay, either. On the third level, Rick can hear sobs and frightened screams. It doesn't take much more than looking up to see that some people didn't make the liftoff. He understands the importance of the stress test, but...damn...

The body count is largest on the third level, and for the first time, Rick sees a door leading out. It's on the third level, and he thinks he sees another on the second. The third one is where all the dead are being carried, though. Rick hopes he never has to use that door.

After a handful of hours, Denise and her crew finally return to the first floor. They all look exhausted, shaken, and ready to call it a night. But Denise speaks up anyway.

"We'll leave the room in groups, alright? If you're feeling up to it, there will be food--though it's the crappy space stuff, so you've been warned." She laughs a little, and this drags a few chuckles from the people waiting. "You'll get more water, and we'll show you to your bunks. No," she laughs again, motioning to the beds with her thumb, "you don't have to sleep in those. You'll only be in them if something bad happens, or during landing. Welcome to Alexandria."

Rick's group is the third one to be called. It's himself, Carl, Judith, a couple who go by Maggie and Glenn, and an awkward brunette by the name of Tara. They're led up the stairs and to the second level, and out the door that Rick spotted. They walk through a brief corridor, before Denise leads them out and into another long hallway. On one side is a massive window, and on the other is a long series of metal cabinets labeled with all kinds of different food names. This must be the space food Denise was talking about. It's probably all packaged up in little baggies. Rick's not gonna lie--he's kind of curious about it.

But his attention is drawn to the window, first. He feels Judith's grip on his hand tighten as they approach and stare straight into blackness. Black with dots of white. Emptiness...frightening emptiness. And they'll be in this for three years.

As he's led to the bunks next, he realizes that life as he and Carl and Judith have ever known it is gone. No more coming home and telling Carl to get off the videogames and eat supper, and no more Judith trying to play games on his phone. No more work, no more school. What awaits them at this terrarium on Vona? What are they going to be greeted to?

The first year isn't so bad. There's a calendar that helps keep track of days as they would have been on Earth, but it's not the same. The bunks are divided into eight beds per room, in quarters that remind Rick of what he's seen warships in movies look like. Rick and Carl celebrate Judith's third birthday in those bunks, and then they celebrate Carl's sixteenth out in the long corridor with the window.

Eventually, they're given access to a recreation room that has some exercise equipment and several tables and couches to lounge at. Being confined to these rooms for over a year, however, becomes exhausting. Rick tries to take his cabin fever out on one of the treadmills, but it only does so much.

By the second year, he's gotten to know everyone on the ship. There's Spencer and Deanna, Pete, Jessie, Ron, and Sam, Daryl, Glenn and Maggie, Tara, Rosita, and so many more. They've all got their own little circles that they spend most of their time with, but to avoid going absolutely insane, it makes sense that they spend time around everyone just a little bit.

A month before the three-year mark, there's a party. Staff and passengers alike congregate in the recreation room, and Denise cracks open some birthday cake flavored space gunk for them to enjoy. One of the engineers, a man named Eugene, announces that they are making perfect time on their travel, and that their arrival still appears to be occurring on time.

Judith is five years old, and Carl has just hit eighteen. They've spent the past nearly three years on a spacecraft. For Carl, it probably means more. Judith was a little young, so she may not remember much of the world before this. Carl, however...this has to be terrifying. It sure is for Rick.

The two discuss it a week away from arrival. They've pushed a couch from the recreation room out into the big hallway and he, Carl, and Judith are all perched on it as they watch the universe exist around them. Carl has grown so much--he's gotten so tall, and his hair so long. He's so mature, and even though Rick's sure that has a lot to do with the limited activities here and inability to get into much trouble, he's still proud of his son.

Judith's blonde hair has grown long as well, all curls and waves, framing her big blue eyes perfectly. She has a habit of being insanely perceptive of Rick's emotions, and spends a lot of her time clasping his hand and reminding him that everything's going to be okay.

What would he do without his kids?

"What do you think it's gonna be like?" Carl asks, and Rick watches how his eyes seem to be continuously absorbing the space swirling around them. That's the thing about being all the way out here--you can never stop seeing more abyss. It's all around you. However, the distant, Earthlike planet everyone calls Vona is visible now. It's not unlike a picture of Earth that you'd see in a textbook. It's somewhat comforting that it's not red or brown or white--that it looks at least something like their home planet.

"Hopefully a little more homey than this place." Rick attempts to joke. Judith giggles a little. "But we'll be in a terrarium, so I'm not sure. They said other people've already been livin' there, so there's that much."

"I hope it's warm." Carl thinks aloud. "It's so cold up here."

Up here, like there's actually a direction where their ship is located. To Rick, they don't feel like they're anywhere. Just suspended in a sea of blackness, with nothing but _nothing_ around them. It's scary--even after just about three years, it's still scary. And even though the ship's heating and air conditioning works well, Rick understands the sensation of cold. When's the last time they'd seen the sun? A sun?

"I'm sure it will be." A woman's voice penetrates Rick's thoughts, and he finds himself greeted to a woman he's become good friends with during their travel. She goes by Michonne, and Judith and Carl love her. She smiles a lot more than she did the first time they got there. Rick knows it's because she lost her boyfriend and son on that third level of the ship. He can tell she still has trouble getting past all of that, but after three years, she's getting stronger. Either that, or trying to be strong for their sakes.

Either way, she takes a seat with the Grimes family and peers outside alongside Carl. "Anything's got to be warmer than this thing."

Carl laughs. "Yeah, maybe."

One day before landing, everyone is ushered back to the room they'd arrived in. The beds are reclined, and they're warned before they enter the new planet's atmosphere. Landing isn't as rough as taking off, however, and after a handful of hours that Rick doesn't recall entirely, the beds are being opened again, vitals are being checked, and people are being escorted off the ship. No one dies this time.

Eugene leads them off. They're given puffy white suits, and once they're dressed in them, they're directed down a long jetway and out into what looks like a giant glass tube leading toward a towering structure Rick can see in the distance.

They've been told that the climate of Vona is suitable for human living, but there are still precautions. The gravity is just a bit stronger than that of Earth, but everything else screams livable. As they walk through their long glass public-aquarium-esque tube, Rick can see life all around them. The flora looks bigger than any he's seen personally on earth--large and towering and the bushes and trees have big leaves that remind him of a jungle. He has yet to see any fauna, but there's got to be some. Vona is lush and green and water travels alongside the tube in crystalline blue streams. Rick wonders if this is what Earth looked like before mankind got its hold on it.

The terrarium is huge. As they draw closer, it gets taller and wider. It's cylindrical in shape, but extremely wide, and probably towering by about fifteen stories. Rick can see greenery on some of the floors and buildings on others. The terrarium is made up of concrete and thick glass not unlike the glass that divided the ship from space during their travels here.

Eugene leads them inside and to an elevator. They're herded onto it in groups, and led to what Rick recognizes is the twelfth floor. Eugene informs them that most of the lower floors are completely uninhabited, save for the ones being used as farmland, and that as more people arrive, more of the floors will be put to use. Roughly fifteen stories that look like they could each host a small community is still just a tiny part of the population back on Earth. That means that unless they've got another one of these structures somewhere on Vona, most of the people back on Rick's old home planet are likely going to die.

It's hard to look past that. It's hard to turn one's head up and focus on what they're being given now, but Rick tries anyway. He's got his kids to worry about.

They step out of the elevator and are immediately greeted to what looks like half an apartment complex and half a garden. There's a long, sprawling building with doors that look like they might be one-story apartment homes lining them, and then there's paths upon paths circling crops of all kinds. Rick sees tomatoes at the forefront and even more beyond that. For one floor, it sure contains a lot.

The passengers are assigned buildings and given keycards for them. They're ushered inside and instructed to remove their suits. Given a chance to use an actual shower, and are fed actual food. Rick moans aloud at the taste of a sandwich.

Judith and Carl have their own rooms, and Rick can sleep in an actual bed. For an evacuation project though, this sure seems like a lot. He just knows there has to be a catch. And at this point, he's almost willing to accept any condition.

After an hour, they're instructed to step outside. Rick finds himself at the front of a massive group of the people he'd been traveling with. He notices that nobody else resides on this floor, and assumes that the other floors are the same way--divided by the group they flew in on. In any case, Eugene and Denise are trying loudly to inform the crowd that they're about to get to hear the man in charge of the terrarium speak, but the chatter doesn't stop until said man in charge arrives.

And for good reason, too. There's a concrete stage on the far side of the floor, past the apartment buildings. He stands atop it, and Rick doesn't think he's the only one surprised when someone in a big white spacesuit or tidy dress clothes isn't the one who steps out. This man is clad in a leather jacket, dark pants, and leather boots. His black hair is slicked back, and dark eyes devour the people standing before him.

He doesn't need a microphone--his voice booms enough as it is.

"So," he starts, eyeing every last one of them, "you all must be Alexandria." Rick's eyes lock with his momentarily, and he steels his gaze as he watches. "Alexandria, being the expedition title you fucks traveled in here on, feel me?" He pauses, and a smirk spreads wide onto his lips. "That'll be the name of this floor, from now on. So welcome to Alexandria, welcome to Vona, and allow me to introduce yours fucking truly."

The crowd has gone completely silent. Everyone watches this man with bated breath, unsure what to think. "I'm Negan, and I'm the big balls of this terrarium." He points to himself. "You answer to _me_. You follow _my_ rules. You do your part, as instructed, and you don't get teabagged by these big balls. You can get your happy little asses on with starting your new life here, and it'll be good as gravy."

Negan's arms cross, and he shifts his weight from one leg to the other. Rick swears he hears the leather of his jacket squeak in the silence. "We operate as a civilization, here. That's kind of the goddamned point of moving--trying to get civilized all-the-fuck over again." And then he stops again. "Looks like Alexandria's gonna focus on crops. Do well enough, we might have you help Hilltop with livestock. Either way, you do your damn part, and we all get to eat. There should be plenty to go around."

Rick looks around him. Everyone's still gaping up at the little stage where Negan is staring them right back down. He raises a hand, and the 'whoosh!' Rick can hear from the motion drags his attention right back to him. "Now! I'm sure you all know that while I'm the big fucking cheese, I can't do this shit all on my own. So I gotta choose a leader to do so while my ass isn't here. I'm a busy guy, you see."

So, what? They take votes? Go through an electoral process? Isn't that what one would assume a civilization would do? Rick finds himself struggling to remember what everyone else had been before they'd been put on that ship. Michonne had been a lawyer, and Glenn a delivery boy. Tara had been a cop, and Rosita a pyrotechnician. What kind of person is supposed to lead a community in a place that hasn't quite got the same laws as back on Earth?

"You. The blue-eyed guy in the front." Negan nods to Rick. He feels Judith's hand tighten around his own and hears his son's breath hitch. He swallows. "Get up here."

Rick looks around frantically until he sees Michonne, who nods for Judith and Carl to approach her. They reluctantly obey, and once they do, Rick makes his way up onto the stage. Negan's presence makes him almost nervous, especially now that he's up close and has no idea what kind of person this guy is.

In an instant, Negan's arm is around his shoulders and he's motioning with his free hand to the crowd. "You guys all had the misfortune of riding with this poor sap for three fucking years--so what do you think?"

Everyone exchanges glances. Rick can tell they're not sure how to respond. But after one, two, three seconds, they start to nod in agreement. Rick doesn't remember displaying any good leadership qualities, but everyone seems to think he's worthy of the job. He tenses when Negan's grip squeezes his shoulder.

"Leader material, then?" Negan questions, and the people nod all over again. Some cheer, and some clap. "Well, alright then. I hope you fuckers know what you've just done."

Rick glances at him, confused, as he continues speaking. "All in the span of five fucking seconds, this man has been given an important role in keeping shit together. Because the longer we keep shit together, the more likely we can expand this place. One day, we might be living out there on actual fucking _land_. So I hope you've chosen someone who can help us get there. Because I don't know about you assholes, but this motherfucker," he motions to himself, "is ready to get out of the goddamned box."

He turns and faces Rick. "What's your name, Baby Blues?"

"Rick Grimes." Rick answers, expression twisted down into a deep frown.

"Good to meet you, Rick Grimes." Negan then rounds on the crowd again. "Rick Grimes, everyone! Leader of Alexandria! You do everything this man tells you to do, or you deal with _me_." He gives Rick a push, ushering him back off stage.

"Now, if you'll excuse me," Negan hops down, himself, "I've got dinner waiting for me back at the Sanctuary. I'll see you tomorrow sometime. Bye, bitches."

And like that, he's gone. The crowd erupts in applause as he, Denise, and Eugene all leave for the elevator. Rick just stares, because he's still reeling over how unexpected that kind of presence was. Negan doesn't possess anything in the way of leaderly manners. He's vulgar, dresses like he's a backup dancer for West Side Story, and is apparently the leader of this fucking place.

And the worst part is, Rick is kind of mesmerized by him.

What an interesting start to life on this new planet. Rick even forgets momentarily that he's no longer on Earth.

But when he remembers he's got a new set of responsibilities to attend to, he rounds on the others. It's not like he isn't used to taking charge when he has to, but this is so different. Rick has a feeling the rest of Alexandria doesn't know what to think, either.

He clears his throat, and then speaks up, not bothering with the stage. "...We'll start first thing in the morning. We can work on assignin' jobs then. For now, enjoy your real beds. I know I'm gonna enjoy mine. Meet here bright and early, and we'll get started. And, uh...thanks, guys."

There's a small amount of applause, before Rick gathers his children and starts for his new home.

 


	2. In Which Rick Meets The Hilltop

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rick has a lot of questions--so many that he's unable to ask them all at once. But the most primary one is: what are the other people living here like? Seems like a good start.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not gonna lie guys, this has to be the most boring chapter I've ever written for anything. The next several chapters aren't going to be quite as uninteresting, but I have about three more chapters of world building to do before the actual plot kicks in. It's going to be a long ride, but I'd like to say it's going to be worth it. I've got some pretty interesting ideas planned out for this, and it's going to be one of the biggest projects I've ever worked on that doesn't follow canon.
> 
> Hope you guys enjoy, regardless!

Rick has got to give this evacuation team some credit--they've got the terrarium working in pretty good condition. Despite the sensation of containment and imprisonment, everything is almost normal. The air feels like it did back on Earth, although a bit heavier than Rick's used to, but the plants grow all the same. A week working in Alexandria tells Rick they've got a pretty good system going. Maggie and Beth work hard on the crops, overseeing the work of the various people assigned to them each given day. Glenn, Rick, and a man named Aaron start up an engineering program under the knowledge that tools will wear down under the constant work they endure. Carl and Judith work with Jessie and her children, and they start assigning basic duties to the younger ones. Jessie and Carol are in the process of putting together an educational system. Life almost feels like it should. Like Rick remembers it feeling so many years ago.

While Rick remembers every day of those three years on that ship, it's hard to believe that much time has passed. He wonders how Earth is doing. The prediction before he'd left was that the planet wouldn't even last a couple more years, so if that's true, then Earth is gone by now.

Holy shit...Earth could be gone. Even confined to the 'glass box' as Negan had called it, it doesn't feel like they're away from Earth. Hell, even when they were on the ship, it didn't feel like they were away from Earth. Rick grew up on that planet. It feels so strange, so surreal, to even think about not being there.

Vona...that's what he gets to call his home planet now. And at present, it might as well be 'a glass container on Vona'. So far, they can't leave and see what their new home has to offer. Eugene claims they're working on it, but doesn't disclose much else. Everything is classified.

But all things considered--the emergency three-year trip on a spacecraft to a new planet, the fact that they know next to nothing about said planet, and the apparent douchebag running the terrarium that is their new home--it's really not all bad. Alexandria functions relatively normally, and Rick's kids aren't completely miserable. At least now, they have rooms to sleep in and a widespread area to play in.

And there are other floors. Rick has wondered in the past week if they'll be allowed to visit the other floors, but he hasn't had the chance to ask. Negan has only come back once--on the second day following Alexandria's arrival, and his visit was so brief and uneventful that the thought to ask him hadn't even crossed Rick's mind. He wants to know who these people Negan had referred to as 'Hilltop' are, and if there are more. More people, a different floor...what's it like?

Curiosity is building as a new world seems to be swelling up around Rick, and of course that makes him want to know more. For now though, he remains hard at work on the task of making sure Alexandria is running as smoothly as the other places apparently are.

The terrarium is made of the thickest glass Rick has ever seen, though Denise has told him it probably isn't necessary. It's just a new planet and caution is the key to survival, because they can't exactly retreat to Earth. Like so many others, she genuinely believes it's either gone by now or well on its way _to_ being gone.

Either way, from certain spots in Alexandria, one can see out of that thick glass. Most of the floor is overrun by dense farmland and small trees, but there are a few spots where you can catch a glimpse of the outside world and what it has to offer. It's not uncommon for Rick to find someone standing and just watching out through these spaces, taking in the vibrant greenery outside. Rick himself has taken a few glances from time to time. It's hard not to look out at the gigantic trees with their massive leaves, or the blue, blue water.

When Rick looks, he looks for other signs of life. Occasionally, he will see a tree rustle or a group of leaves wiggle, but he's either too high up to see what's causing the movement or the wind is what's doing it, because he always sees nothing.

This generates a certain level of unease, because not knowing what you're going to be sharing a home with is pretty terrifying. Like living at the very bottom of the ocean on Earth, where species are still being discovered. Has Vona discovered any species? do these trees have names yet? Rick has so many questions that he's just burning to ask.

But for now, he focuses on his work. He'll ask Negan or Denise or Eugene these questions when the chance to arises.

He's surprised by how fluidly his people fall into the routine of working. Everyone has a job, and they know what it is, and they do it. They operate like a society, and Rick can't help but notice that nobody has to promise anyone money. It's all about getting your job done and having food to put on the table as a result.

There's a big clock that hangs from the high ceiling of their floor. They always know what time it is. The clock operates like one on Earth, with twenty four hours, measuring in military time, but Rick feels like the minutes take longer--like they tried their best to make it seem as close to living on earth as possible, but days are longer than just twenty four hours.

It's easier to believe this when he and Carl come home dead tired and even Judith is scrubbing at her eyes with her hands. At the very least, if the time really does pass by this slowly, they're getting plenty of sleep as well.

It's also possible that Rick's imagining it all. He doesn't live in a world of distractions anymore. It's just work--plowing and growing and constructing and helping make sure everyone is aware of what their job duties are. He can't waste hours on a game on his phone, and he's not filling out paperwork or patrolling or arresting people.

If Rick's being honest, it's a little unnerving, just how well-behaved the residents of Alexandria are. Maybe it's just because they're used to one another as a result of living on that ship together for three years, but things are going so smoothly that Rick finds himself a little on edge, watching almost nervously, waiting for someone to slip out of line.

But they never do. There's a man--a bit of a loner--named Daryl, who prefers to do things on his own, but even he's mostly compliant with what Rick asks him to do.

Negan shows up again a week in, and he brings friends with him. There's a man with stringy blond hair on one side of him, and a guy with a receding hairline and a dark handlebar mustache on the other. Negan himself is sporting a big smile on his face, going on about getting down to business and seeing how this place is running so far and what-have-you. He says it's time to see how his newest Vonans are doing. He talks about this planet like he owns the whole damn thing, and that makes Rick wonder just how much power he actually has.

So far, everyone answers to him. Eugene and Denise regard him as a superior, and everyone on Alexandria doesn't even question the decision to see the same thing. Rick knows it's half in what he's told them about where he stands regarding this place, and half his presence. Negan has a strong, frightening presence, and he carries himself in a way that can almost be described as 'erratic'. His movements are subtle, and then they're not. He's smirking one minute, and then he's scowling the next. His voice drops, and then it booms. Rick's already starting to realize it's pointless to try and guess what he's going to do. Two visits in and he's aware of this fact.

Negan isn't wearing the leather jacket Rick saw him in the last two times. This time, it's just a white T-shirt, dark pants, and his big black boots. His face is freshly shaven, leaving in its wake a sharp jawline and fiercely dark eyes. Rick had noticed those eyes before, but now that he's realizing it's not because he's meeting the big cheese, he's noticing how long his stare lingers on Negan's face. It's with rampant curiosity that he watches, because somehow, this is the guy who is in charge.

Who impulsively selected Rick to be in charge of Alexandria.

Negan, with his vulgar mouth and dark eyes. With his big smirk, sharp features, and odd posture. The last time he was here, he was almost insane with glee about having another floor to babysit. New people to meet, as he had put it. But he had been called away so suddenly that none of that got to happen.

This time, however, Negan's schedule must be squeaky-clean, because he's taking his sweet time looking around. Rick emerges from a set of tomato plants he's been helping Maggie with when Negan spots him. He gestures with his head and a quick wave of the hand for Rick to approach, and Rick obeys.

Negan does not hesitate to look him up and down. It gives Rick the strange sensation that Negan is sizing him up, but he waits for the other man to speak regardless.

"Rick!" Negan suddenly greets. His arm is around Rick's shoulders in a heartbeat, and he's turning him--directing him down the pathway in front of the apartments. "Look at what you've got going on _here_!"

The exclamation, despite Negan's excitement in having, well, exclaimed it, is pretty vague. Rick's not sure how to take it, but he does find himself hoping that it's a good response. After all, he's put a lot of work into this whole thing, and considering they haven't even been here two weeks, he figures he deserves some good attention for it. The land was already mapped out before they'd arrived, but all the planting and and tending, and the starting of the extra programs...that's Rick and his people.

"Now, I do _not_ recall giving you the green light to throw in all this extra shit." Negan's gaze is momentarily fierce, and Rick finds it hard to lock eyes with it. He does so anyway, though. He's not sure what to think of Negan just yet, but he's strong, and he's damn determined for Negan to know that much. "But I like what you've done with the place! Tell me, what's all that about?" He motions to the few young children gathered around Jessie, who is sitting on the little stage Negan had used for his speech.

"They're countin'." Rick shrugs. "It's like school. Doesn't matter what planet we go to--an education is still important."

"...Huh." Negan frowns. "Yeah, Rick--yeah. I guess that shit _is_ pretty fucking important. You think this up during your trip here?"

Rick shakes his head. "Didn't know what to expect while we were out there. Jessie's the brains behind this one." He nods to the blonde woman currently engaging in excited applause with the kids. "I just gave her the go-ahead to start organizin' it and she took off with it."

"Well, if I do say so myself," Negan responds, nodding approvingly, "your super hot schoolteacher is doing a fantastic ass job."

Rick decides to start up a mental tally for all the times Negan isn't subtle. This isn't the first, but he tacks it on there as such anyway.

"And is that a workshop?" Negan adds, drawing Rick back to the present. He's pointing off to a section Rick, Aaron, and Glenn have barricaded off, in front of some of the unoccupied apartments. It's not much right now, since they don't have all the equipment they need, but they've managed to come up with wood planks from a few of the small trees they've cut down and made a fence and desk out of it. It's only been a week, but they're working hard at it.

"It will be eventually." Rick answers. "We're hopin' to smelt materials, too. Got anything to help us do that?"

Negan just grins. "You and Hilltop are going to get along fucking beautifully."

"Hilltop." Rick repeats. "That's another floor, right? Another group that came here. How long ago?"

He sees the way Negan looks down at him, as if searching out an angle. "They're two months shy of a year."

"Do we get to meet them?"

Negan ponders the question for far too long, but Rick notices with some time that he's doing that thing he seems to do often, where he exerts his dominance by way of his intimidating gestures. Like some goddamned alpha, he wants Rick to know he's still in control, even though he's about to answer in the affirmative.

"Sure as shit don't see why not." He's smirking by the time he finishes. He lets go of Rick's hand in favor of turning around and motioning to the large elevator they had reached their floor on. "But we're gonna lay out a couple fucking ground rules, first. Trust me, you want to hear me out on this, unless you want people to die."

Rick's eyebrows furrow at those words, but he listens regardless.

"You can come and go as you please, but if for some reason, one of you fucks wants to become one of those fucks, you take it to me, first. This place operates as smoothly as it does because we've organized the exact workload we need for each floor. So I'm gonna have to make arrangements if you pull that shit. Just... _don't_ pull that shit, alright?"

Rick nods, seeing no reason to disagree.

"Second," Negan continues, "you can visit Hilltop, and you can visit the Kingdom, and if you've got the balls, you can visit the Sanctuary. But you are _never_ to visit the unoccupied floors." The seriousness in Negan's voice is unnerving, but Rick nods compliantly anyway. "Shit's under construction, and we have people hard at work on it. It'd be a shame if someone died because they were stupid enough not to listen to the guy who _obviously_ knows what the fuck is going on around here. Can I trust you to keep your people in line with that, Rick?"

There's no hesitation--Rick shakes his head in agreement yet again. It makes enough sense to him, and even if Negan sounds almost threatening about it, he's got no reason to question it. The thing is, Negan's in charge of his life, and probably hundreds of others. That's a huge responsibility, and even though things on this planet are already operating differently than they did on Earth, Rick knows it's better to trust someone who actually has an idea what's going on than to ignore their suggestion, no matter how curious he is.

At the very least, he has three other communities he's allowed to explore, now. Once things start operating without necessity for Rick's constant watch over them, he figures he'll go around--get to know the people living around him.

Eugene and Denise both seem pretty unnerved by Negan, but at this point, Rick doesn't really understand why. He sure doesn't seem all that bad. Just a little different, that's all. Unless there's just something he hasn't learned about the man, he supposes.

"Good. I knew I liked you." Negan grins, claps Rick on the back, and then motions back to Alexandria. "After you take me on the grand tour, Rick, I'll introduce you to Hilltop."

Fair enough, Rick figures. He waves for Negan to follow. Even though there's not much more than farmland and the two additional projects everyone's been working on, there's a lot to show. Rick has to explain to Negan that crops don't grow right away, but after dealing with a firm reassurance from the Alexandria leader, Negan seems content--even goes so far as to compliment Rick's shutting his assholery down without being a 'total dickbag' about it.

He introduces Negan to Tara, someone he's decided is going to operate as a constable for the area. Rick can only do so much, after all. Negan seems to approve, and after telling Rick to keep putting that 'big-as-fuck brain' to work, decides to go oversee the way the school is going.

The kids are in the middle of the alphabet when Negan approaches. Judith is the first to stop, though everyone else keeps singing. Her blue eyes lock onto Negan's, and she neither smiles nor frowns. She just stares, as if she can see something nobody else can. Rick recalls the way her grip on his hand had tightened when Negan had called him to the podium. He wonders if she's afraid of the guy like everyone else seems to be.

"Well, hi." Negan greets after they're finished with their song, and Rick notices just how soft his voice becomes when he addresses the kids. Jessie turns her head to regard him, waving a hand for him to join their group. Judith stares the entire time. Oddly, Negan doesn't seem to mind, and when he's done visiting with the children, he quickly rejoins Rick's side.

The two men he brought along with him are busy scouting the rest of Alexandria, examining crops and stretches of farmland, and Negan doesn't see fit to drag them along to Hilltop. He just motions for Rick to follow him.

It's as they're riding up the elevator to the apparent Hilltop community that Negan finally speaks up. "School thing was a good-ass idea."

"Yeah?" Rick acknowledges.

Negan nods. "Kids seem to love it, and they're what fucking matters here."

Rick wonders why Negan waited until the elevator to bring that fact up, but he doesn't think much of it. He doesn't have much time to worry about it anyway, because soon, the doors are flying open again, and Negan is ushering Rick out and onto another stretch of floor.

The smell of livestock fills the air, and Rick finds himself looking at something almost identical to a farm. cattle, chickens, pigs, and other animals line the area, with apartments identical to the ones on the Alexandria floor at the very opposite end. It occurs to Rick that they had to fly and care for at least some of these animals all the way from Earth...for three years.

Negan grins proudly at the settlement, before he motions for Rick to follow him down a path toward the apartments. As if on cue, an older man starts jogging out of one of the larger apartments, clad in a suit and tie.

"This is Hilltop." Negan reiterates. "It's been around longer than everyone else, besides the Sanctuary. They weren't all farmers at first, but fucking...look at this shit, Rick. This is what I want from you guys. Make me proud like this, and my dick will probably ring for you like it's been struck by a sounding fork."

That would be number two on the tally of times Negan's been anything but subtle. Rick has to remind himself, on that note, that Negan is actually in charge of people.

"This is pretty amazing." Rick observes, just as the old man approaching finally reaches them.

"Negan!" The man greets, smiling widely. Rick notices that he doesn't offer a hand out to shake it. "It's good to see you! What, er, what brings you here? This isn't inspection day..."

Rick notices how frightened the guy looks, and he can't help but wonder why.

"Cool your fucking jets, Gregory." Negan groans. "I'm not here for inspection--besides, you know I usually send Simon here for that." He sighs, gives Rick's shoulder a squeeze, and then shoves him toward the man. "This, Rick, is Gregory. He's basically the you of Hilltop. Except a lot more annoying."

Number three on the tally. Negan seems proud of Hilltop, but he doesn't seem too keen on talking to this guy, even to the point of sending some other guy along to do inspection. Rick wonders what happened, but he's not ready to step on any toes, so he keeps that curiosity to himself and instead offers a hand out.

"Rick Grimes."

"Gregory. It's a pleasure." Gregory spares a glance at Negan, but turns his focus back to Rick almost immediately. "Would you be part of the new arrivals? The ones in charge of crops?"

"That'd be us, yeah." Rick smiles.

"Good, Rick, good!" Gregory answers, as he finally shakes Rick's hand. "That means you and I will be talking often--we'll be trading supplies."

"That's a negative." Negan interjects. "And you fucking know it is, Gregory. As per usual, my men will collect from each community, and we will pass them out as we deem necessary. Don't try to call the goddamn shots here, man, you know how much I can't stand that shit."

Rick can practically see the man's tail tuck itself between his legs as he recoils. "Of course, Sir. My apologies."

"Negan?" Another voice asks, and Rick turns his attention to a man with a long beard and even longer, very straight hair. His blue eyes are fixated on Negan's, next to Rick. "Where's Simon? It's not inspection day."

Rick half-expects Negan to chew this guy's head off, but instead, he just grins and throws his arm back around Rick's shoulders. "Simon's visiting the new floor. This poor fucker here is Rick--he hails from said floor. Hilltop, meet Alexandria."

"Hi." Rick shakes the man's hand. "Rick Grimes."

"Paul Rovia." The bearded man responds, and Rick can't help but notice how strong of a smile this guy has. "You can call me Jesus."

"Jesus?" Rick snorts.

"Sounds pretentious, I know." The aforementioned Jesus says amidst a few chuckles. "But I guess I look the part."

"That, you most certainly fucking do." Negan joins in, before he nods to Rick. "Jesus is good people. You want someone to show you around the Hilltop? Jesus is your guy."

When that comment is made, Rick swears he sees Gregory's lips curl down into a frown, but when he turns to regard the man fully, said man turns his attention away from the group altogether. He doesn't allow himself to worry too much about it right now.

"I'm gonna turn you loose, now." Negan says, nodding to Jesus. "Ask Jesus here about the booze and blacksmith."

Blacksmith, huh? That must've been what Negan meant when he'd said that Alexandria and Hilltop were going to get along well. In Rick's mind, his focus in helping start up a materials production group has been on the facing the fact that they're going to live here forever, and that they need to make sure they have everything they need to do so. Rick doesn't know the first thing about smelting or metalworking (unless you count running a spot welder back before his days in the Police Academy), but that's why he has Aaron to show him, he supposes.

There's some relief in knowing another floor already has something like that going, though. This Jesus...he and his people could teach Rick and _his_ people a few things. They could grow together, and so long as they did it within Negan's strict rule set, they'd be fine.

"I'll see you this time next week, Rick." Negan says, before he licks his lips and offers Rick a wink. "Keep that pretty ass of yours in line, will you? I'm impressed, and I fully intend to stay that way." He disappears onto the elevator, and Rick turns an almost exasperated glance to Jesus, who just laughs.

"He's exhausting, isn't he?" The man observes aloud.

"Yeah." Rick laughs. "He wasn't even here an hour." He appreciates that Jesus knows what he's talking about--that he doesn't have to say just how intimidating Negan's presence is. He's tall, and the way he stands and walks and speaks is all so unpredictable that you almost spend your time around him on eggshells. It doesn't help that Rick's still learning what kind of guy Negan is, either. He doesn't dislike the man, though. Despite the way Eugene and Denise behave in his presence, and how Gregory seemed all too eager to please him just now, Rick doesn't see what's wrong with him.

He kind of likes that snarky personality. But that like is also going to bite Rick in the ass one day. Somehow, he knows this. And for whatever reason, he accepts it.

"Yeah--makes me glad Simon usually drops by here for inspections." Jesus responds. "Not that he's a whole lot better."

"Simon?" Rick wonders.

Jesus nods. "You'll meet him eventually. Negan calls him his right-hand man. Keeps him around a lot, and trusts him more than anyone else to do his dirty work."

Rick frowns, but deems himself satisfied with the information. He gestures to the rest of the floor on which Jesus resides. "So. About this booze and blacksmith..."

"The booze is a work in progress." Jesus admits. "But Negan's pretty excited about the idea, so we're doing what we can. We've crafted a few beers, but everything else has to be aged or we don't have the materials, so..."

"That's amazing, though." Rick smiles. "Considerin' how much we have to give up to live here, it's great that you guys are figurin' somethin' like this out."

Jesus mirrors Rick's smile, before he tucks his hands into the pockets of his long coat. "...Thanks. C'mere, I'll show you the blacksmith."

It's pretty incredible, too. The Hilltop has constructed molds for shapes of the different tools needed for their work, and Rick wonders if that's how Alexandria ended up with the tools they have. Not unlike Alexandria, Hilltop has trees too. Rick remembers Philip informing him that the evacuation project has been in progress for years, and he wonders how long ago some of these trees were planted here. They're not obscenely tall, none more than ten feet or so, but they've clearly been growing for some time.

It's a stark reminder that there are a lot of questions Rick has. He's going to have to ask Eugene about the trees the next time he gets to see him.

Rick realizes he'd forgotten to ask Negan about the world outside of the terrarium, and makes a mental note to visit the Sanctuary floor one day, in the near future.

Either way, a man Jesus introduces as Earl works hard, hammering and pouring and inspecting in his workshop, and Rick's more than just a little impressed. More out of excitement than anything, he immediately asks if the man will give him a few pointers for the sake of his own community, to which Earl agrees. They sample some of the beer Hilltop has constructed while they discuss the details, before Rick decides to make his way back to Alexandria.

Not unlike his own floor, there's a big clock hovering from the Hilltop's ceiling, and going by that clock, it's almost nineteen-hundred hours. That means it's time for Rick to get back, conduct one last closing round, and start sending people back to their apartments. Judith's probably ready to tuck in for the night, and Rick's pretty worn out if he does say so himself.

By the time Rick returns, it's dark on his floor. Alexandria has a series of lamps that overlook the main paths, and it almost feels like a nighttime stroll on Earth would have. It has a nearly-homelike feeling that Rick immediately considers absolutely necessary, as this place is his new home and needs to feel like it.

He thanks people left and right for their work, waving them back off to their beds, and checks to make sure that everything is running just as smoothly as it was in the morning when he'd started his day. Eventually, he runs into Tara, and sends her on her way. They probably need a nighttime constable too, but Rick honestly isn't in any hurry to get that done. Negan and his people seem omnipresent enough that most people are too scared to do anything crazy. Besides, where can they run off to?

That thought relaxes Rick just as much as it makes him feel claustrophobic.

He's just about to return to his home, where he imagines Carl and Judith are, when he spots his daughter in front of one of the small patches of visible window. Carl is next to her, tugging at one of her hands. She's got the other one pressed against the glass, and as Rick approaches, he notices that she's clapping her palm on it.

Hard.

"Judy, stop!" Rick requests as he jogs to her side, dropping to his knees next to her. She doesn't obey, however. Rick notices how fixated her icy blue eyes are on the window, and he hesitates. She rears one tiny hand back, and swings it forward toward the glass again, but Rick catches that one.

" _Judith_." Rick says firmly, and as if being snapped out of a trance, the little girl stops. She turns her head to her father and breaks out into a smile.

"Daddy!" Judith squeals as she launches herself toward Rick and throws her arms around his shoulders. Rick peers over her at Carl, whose eyes are wide. He shrugs his shoulders and mouths 'I don't know', making it clear he's not sure what just happened, either.

Rick decides not to think much on it, though, and instead scoops her up, nodding for Carl to follow him back to the apartment. They've got a long week ahead of them. Negan's proud of Rick today, and he fully intends to make sure that the way he regarded the Hilltop is how he's going to regard Alexandria whenever it is he has to introduce the newest arrivals to them. For such a small portion of such a large planet, there's so much room to grow, and Rick finds that fact kind of exciting.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is probably a huge testament to the fact that I don't know much of anything about agriculture/farming. I did a little research, but I kept most of it vague. I don't consider it hugely important to the plot, though, but I still apologize for any glaring inaccuracies there may be!


	3. In Which It Storms

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rick meets the Kingdom and gets to learn what a thunderstorm on Vona looks like. He also somehow manages the time to sow the seeds of friendship between himself and Negan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wish I could snap my fingers and have chapter 6 written already! I'm so excited for what's to come after all this world-building, but alas, I still have a few chapters to go. Hope you guys enjoy!

The third and fourth weeks are pleasant ones for production. Crops are starting to grow, tiny stems and leaves and blossoms popping out of the ground. With Earl's teachings, materials are becoming easier to create. Rick quickly notices that Carl has quite the flair for it, so he joins Glenn and Aaron in churning out shovels and hammers and supplies necessary for keeping the functionality of their entire floor going steady.

Negan sure seems to think it's all headed in a good direction. With one inspection each of those weeks, he comes in a good mood and leaves in an even better one. He even goes so far as to apologize to Rick for having been so impatient with regard to crops, seeing as he's getting his proof now. It's not much, but it's a start, and Negan is apparently okay with starts.

He likes Rick, and Rick doesn't just think that out of some self-indulgent mental conception he's pulled out of nowhere. No, it's pretty damned obvious. Negan often swarms Rick's side with an arm around his shoulders, actually listens to what he has to say without interrupting him (like Rick saw with Gregory), and even comes to the guy for suggestions regarding the Alexandria floor. It's apparent to Negan that Rick has his ducks in a row, and Rick supposes Negan likes that in a person.

Really likes it.

Enough to joke about getting an erection over it.

Multiple times.

At this point, Rick has learned to let the comments roll right off his back, and Negan seems to appreciate that, too. Either that, or they've both just acknowledged that Negan's not going to stop any time soon and left it at that. Regardless, it isn't that big of a deal. The point is, even though Negan can be intimidating sometimes, Rick doesn't mind his presence all that much. Sometimes, he says things that leave him thinking, but for the most part, he's not a total stick up the ass.

Of course, Rick only has five encounters with him to base that judgment on, but it is what it is. So far, Rick doesn't have a problem with him. He's nothing more than an overgrown teenager with a lot more under his belt than he probably should have.

But then again, how long has this project been in progress? It's been a long time since Rick spoke to Philip back on Earth, but he'd said 'years'. Looking at the sheer size of the terrarium and the functionality of it all, Rick assumes that 'years' exceeds at least one decade. There's just no other way they could have all the supplies they need here in much less, considering just the passenger ship took three years to arrive.

That means that either someone else had control of the terrarium before Negan did, or this guy has been running the show for at least a decade. That said, he probably knows what he's doing, and maybe the asshole nature has come from spending ten fucking years away from his home planet.

Or hell, maybe Rick's just assuming he actually liked Earth to begin with.

Either way, he doesn't dislike Negan as much as everyone else seems to. There's even a part of Rick who enjoys the attention Negan gives him. Even if most of it is heavily-shrouded in unsubtle vulgarities(Rick's tally is at fourteen at present), he kind of likes it. It takes away from the professional air to things--makes living a life on an entirely new planet seem a little less like a job.

Funny, how a guy single-handedly running Rick's new reality also serves as an escape from said reality, but he's not going to deny it, either. There have even been times when he's thought about suggesting the two of them head to Hilltop together and try out some of that homemade alcohol--shoot the shit together, have a good chat...y'know, learn what kind of man the big guy in charge is.

At the same time, he's got a lot to do. So much, in fact, that every single time Negan has dropped by for inspection, Rick has forgotten to ask the questions he's had regarding Vona as a whole. It's just been trying to make sure their floor gets up and running properly, overseeing new developments, and keeping an eye on his children that has kept Rick so busy he's damn near been tripping over himself trying to keep his shit straight.

Sometimes, he thinks about giving the leadership role to someone more used to this kind of responsibility (like Deanna, who had apparently just retired from her position as a mayor before leaving for Vona), but then, he remembers that Negan selected him. The guy is likely expecting him to dig his heels in and figure his shit out. Rick really doesn't want to disappoint him after being trusted with so much, because first impressions are damn important when you're starting life all over again, so he does just that.

Or rather, he has _been_ doing just that.

Today marks the next inspection, and as Rick starts his morning rounds, he reminds himself that things will become less exhausting once everyone gets a clearer grasp on what they're doing. When you're trying to put an entire community together, of course it's going to be a challenge. An exhausting, slow-moving one, and Rick can also take comfort in the fact that he's not the only one worn out. Everyone on the Alexandria floor has been doing their part, figuring out what works best for them, and as a result, they're all pretty tuckered out.

Jessie's 'school' is small, as there weren't many children brought here from Earth. But Rick has thought about suggesting bringing the children from all floors to said 'school' to continue their education. He sure can't see why Negan would be opposed to it, considering he'd given the whole 'children are the future' line to Rick on the day he'd met Hilltop. It sure as hell doesn't _seem_ to break any rules, so long as the children go back home after each day.

It's just one of many things Rick has scribbled down onto a list. He plans on bringing said list to Negan's attention during inspection, and he's determined not to forget this time. The list is tucked into his back pocket, folded obnoxiously so that it jabs at Rick's skin and reminds him every other step that he's got to address it.

But before inspection, Rick has made the decision to visit the Kingdom. Hilltop is two floors above Alexandria, with the Kingdom in between. Alexandria and the Hilltop have been working together fluidly ever since they met, and Rick is almost certain he can make that sort of agreement with the Kingdom as well. From what Jesus has told him, they're very wonderful, welcoming people, though their leader is somewhat odd.

Odd, Rick can handle, though. Yeah, Negan--he's referring to you.

He sends Judith to 'class', and Carl goes straight to the materials station, where a smelting iron has indeed been provided by Negan. Rick wonders where he acquired one so quickly, but also reminds himself that there are at least ten floors below Alexandria. Considering that everyone has their own job, he wouldn't be surprised if there were plenty of supplies kept somewhere down there. From the looks of it, Negan and the rest of the terrarium's workers seem to know exactly what they want each floor to do, so they've probably got a whole stockpile of equipment somewhere.

Either way, Rick steps onto the large elevator and pushes the button for the next floor. With just himself aboard it, the elevator is huge. It's a big, round thing that looks like it can hold twenty people without an issue, and Rick almost feels lonely on it. Not that it matters much, because despite how tall each floor is, it doesn't take him long to reach the Kingdom's floor.

Not unlike Alexandria and Hilltop, the Kingdom contains a line of concrete apartments spread along one side of the large cylindrical floor. There are a few small gardens, but Rick sees more clothing and weapons production than food. What Rick sees in the immediate vicinity are knives, bows and arrows, and clothes of all colors suspended from wires strewn across everywhere. There are sheds all along another portion of the circle, and people practice with some of the weapons in circular, gazebo-esque areas scattered about the floor.

The Kingdom looks _busy_.

A man in heavy padding that reminds Rick of homemade body armor approaches. He has piercing eyes that scrutinize him over a long nose, and Rick finds himself trying to stare back as intensely as possible.

"And who might you be?" The man questions, voice laced with suspicion. Rick finds that strange, considering they're in a glass case in the middle of a planet that has encountered barely any human life by comparison to its size. Everyone is eventually going to know everyone, so what's there to fear?

He remembers Jesus warning him about their odd behavior, though.

"Rick Grimes." He answers calmly, his expression placid and as non-threatening as he can possibly manage. "I'm from the floor below you. Negan calls us Alexandria."

"Alexandria." The man repeats. "Yes, Negan has spoken of you. I suspect you request an audience with the King?"

The King? And what's with the odd manner of speaking? Rick frowns, but eventually nods. "Is that your leader? If so, yes. Just want to meet him--see what he's like. What this whole place is like."

The man gestures with a wave of his head for Rick to follow him, and then leads him down one of the paths, toward the apartment buildings. There's one at the very end, with words that remind Rick of Bible verses painted on the door. Unsurprisingly, Rick is directed toward this one, and after a keycard is swiped, the door is unlocked and Rick is being led inside.

When he steps in, he's met with basically everything he hadn't been ready to encounter. Yeah, being led into a special apartment for one person with Bible verses painted on the front door is already a little odd, but is that a _tiger_? Rick knows they've somehow managed to get chickens and cattle here, but a _tiger_?

The living room has been made into something of a miniature auditorium, and atop the stage, next to the tiger, sits a man on what appears to be a throne. His posture is firm and upright, and his long white dreadlocks splay out over his shoulders and chest. There's a feather tied into his hair, and he's wearing the homemade equivalent to elegant robes, a staff in his hand. On the side of him opposite him stands a husky man with an axe(did Hilltop make it?), his dark hair tied back into a ponytail and a calm expression resting on his face.

The man atop the throne smiles warmly down at Rick. "Greetings. Richard, who did you bring to me?"

"He calls himself Rick Grimes." 'Richard' answers. Rick eyes him curiously.

" _You really should've warned me about the tiger._ " Rick whispers, but Richard shrugs and brings his focus back to his leader.

"He hails from Alexandria--the newest floor. He has requested an audience with you."

The 'king' nods slowly. "Ah, so he has! Let us talk, Rick Grimes."

Richard seems to take that as his sign to leave, as he turns and steps out of the building, leaving just the dark-haired axe-wielder, the tiger, and the supposed King.

"It's a pleasure, Rick Grimes of Alexandria." he says, as he gestures to himself. "I am King Ezekiel. This is Jerry, and this is Shiva." He motions to the man next to him, and then to the tiger. "Welcome to the Kingdom. Our primary exports are clothing and weapons, and--"

"--you have a tiger." The words fall from Rick's lips before the aforementioned King Ezekiel can finish speaking, and Rick doesn't even feel sorry about it. His mind is still reeling, and maybe he's not being as polite and formal as these guys are, but honestly, who could blame him? There's no way Gregory didn't react the same way, and Rick doesn't even want to get started on how Negan dealt with it.

Maybe he handled it well, though, considering the fact that the tiger's still alive.

"I do." Ezekiel looks amused above all else, and his smile is still warm. Rick notices he a fierce shape to his eyes, and he has a feeling Negan chose him to be the Kingdom's leader about the same way he chose Rick. After all, hadn't he called Rick 'baby blues' before asking his name? Negan's probably an 'eyes' kind of guy. Come to think of it, both Gregory and Jesus have strong eyes, too...

Either way, Rick lets tumble another likely abrasive question. "... _Why?_ How?"

King Ezekiel laughs. "Shiva is my family. I cannot imagine life without her. Keeping her was a request I...strongly made upon being given the opportunity to flee. Clearly, they eventually agreed to my condition. She is harmless unless I order her to do harm, which I have not done and will not do. So you need not worry, Rick Grimes."

"Rick...Rick is fine." He responds, nodding to Ezekiel. "You're all an--"

"Eccentric bunch?" Ezekiel questions. "I've heard it said we are, but my Kingdom feels like home to many as a result, so I see no need to change this."

"Fair enough." Rick smiles. Odd behavior or not, this Ezekiel guy doesn't seem half-bad.

Rick spends at least an hour conversing with the good King Ezekiel. He doesn't work up the guts to approach Shiva, but the white-haired king seems used to that, as it doesn't bother him. They part on amiable terms, with a shake of hands, before Rick decides it's about time to head back to Alexandria and await their fearless leader.

Apparently, the Kingdom produces some firearms alongside their more primitive weapons, which Rick assumes has something to do with the sheds he saw. The people here, Rick figures, must be pretty trustworthy for Negan to put them in charge of weapons. But Ezekiel has also pointed out that inspections there are every other day, as opposed to once a week, probably to make sure nothing fishy is going on.

They've agreed to meet some time later to discuss any future projects they could work on together, as Negan likely has to be present for that discussion. But Rick has high hopes. He somewhat appreciates the eccentricity of the Kingdom. It makes this crazy new journey to a whole other planet feel a lot less technical. More homey, even though Rick is absolutely not even the slightest bit used to everything the Kingdom has to offer.

On his way out, he runs into two men surrounded by a group of boys. Two of the boys are roughly the same age, and one is probably four or five years younger. The men, holding what looks like broomsticks with the ends taken off, wave their 'weapons' around in unison, their movements fluid and graceful. The children, with smaller versions of the same sticks, try their best to mirror it. One has it down to a science, but the other two seem to be struggling.

Either way, they stop soon enough. One of the men locks eyes with Rick, looking a little perplexed. A balding man behind him pops a piece of cheese into his mouth, and then offers Rick a smile and a wave.

Yeah, he likes the Kingdom. If not for the fact that Negan is due any minute, Rick would stay around and ask the group what they're practicing. But instead, he simply waves back, heads for the elevator, and waits for the doors to open.

He finds Negan on the elevator, and as he steps on and the doors shut behind him, the larger man breaks into a wide grin. "Rick! Just the guy I was looking for!"

"Hi, Negan." Rick greets flatly. "I was just heading back for--"

"Inspection? No fucking kidding." Negan snorts. "Great minds think alike or some shit, Rick. What do you think of the Kingdom?"

Rick shrugs. "They're interesting, that's for sure. Had a lot of fun visitin'."

"They have a _fucking tiger_!" Negan practically shrieks, and his sheer excitement is amusing. Rick knows he's grinning as he watches the other man's display, though he doesn't immediately say anything. "Is that not the coolest goddamned shit _ever_!?"

"Yeah." Rick says amidst a calm smile. "I suppose it is pretty cool."

"Fuck yeah--just imagine the damage that fucker could do. All those sci-fi movies were just missing the tiger. You fucking know I'm right, Rick."

"Yeah, maybe." Rick answers simply, just as the elevator stops on the Alexandria floor. They step out together, greeted to the hustle and bustle of Rick's home floor. People are working tirelessly, the smell of farmland and burning metal filling the air around them. Rick stops a few yards in and casts an expectant glance at Negan, who nods and starts the inspection.

As per usual, it goes well. Negan visits each crop, each plot of farmland, asking questions and voicing his pride in the way things are going. He stops by the stage, where Jessie and the kids are gathered together, verbally practicing their vowel sounds. Jessie smiles nervously at him, but he waves and continues along. Everyone always seems so anxious around him.

Negan finishes soon enough, though, and when he rejoins Rick's side, it's with that usual arm curled around his shoulders, hip bumping into Rick's, obnoxious grin spread across his lips.

"Still kicking ass I see, Rick." He praises, and Rick nods.

"We're still workin', too." The smaller man answers, before he digs into his pocket and tugs out the piece of paper that's been jabbing at his left ass cheek for almost two hours, now. He unfolds it and holds it out to Negan.

Not unexpectedly, the man takes advantage of the context. "...We've seen each other six times, and you're already writing me love notes?" Make that fifteen unsubtle comments. "Well, don't I just feel like the luckiest goddamn person alive?"

Rick's expression deadpans, unchanging as he looks Negan in the eyes. "It's a list of things I need your approval on."

"Oh?" Negan's grin doesn't falter. "That's good, because I'd be pretty fucking irritated if I found out you were wasting paper on something frivolous."

He's only studied Rick's messy writing for a couple of seconds, when the floor starts shaking. It's not quite like an earthquake. It reminds Rick more of a loud sound vibrating right into the foundation, and when the shaking becomes a rumble that sounds all around them, he realizes that it kind of sounds like thunder. Growling, powerful thunder.

A storm?

When his inquisitive gaze meets Negan's eyes, the taller man nods slowly, almost as if he's heard Rick's unspoken question.

"We haven't mapped out the entire planet yet," Negan starts, "but almost all of what we've explored so far of Vona is like one giant fucking rainforest."

It makes sense to Rick, since the flora here is so very green and the water so abundant, but they've been here a month and Rick hasn't seen much more than a few scattered rain showers. Thankfully, Negan seems to be well on his way to explaining that, because he starts speaking again.

"Frankly, it's a big damned surprise we've gone a month and a half without a storm. Don't quote me on this, but I'm pretty sure Porter said it rains something along the lines of eighty-seven percent of each Vonan year."

How long is a year here? Rick knows for certain by now that Vona is larger than Earth. It orbits its own sun in a line of planets not unlike the solar system Earth had resided in, and is also conveniently the third planet away. The qualities between itself and Earth are eerily similar, but if the days are longer than those back on Earth, how many days does Vona go through before it orbits around its sun?

It's as fascinating as it is frustrating, because there always seem to be more questions popping up. More so than answers. Rick feels like he's walking around on this new planet blindly.

If Rick's being honest, though, he doesn't mind living on a stormy planet. He liked the springs back on Earth, with their heavy rains and thunderstorms, cooling off the day's heat and making the pavement outside of his house give off a steamy smell. To know that it rains a lot here is pleasant, but it's unfortunate that the rain doesn't make its way inside. How Rick would like to step outside and let the rain soak through his clothes and hair and wash away the stress the past three years and one month have caused.

Rain comes in thick sheets, following the thunder. Even though the top of the terrarium is three floors up, Rick can still hear the water pounding heavily down on the glass as if it's right above him. He casts a glance toward Negan, before he jogs toward one of the empty spaces where he can see out the window. The wind is coming sideways, spraying gigantic droplets of rain against the thick glass of the terrarium. The glass is so thick that the rain almost looks far away, and the skies have grown so dark from the looming clouds that the lights inside the terrarium kick on.

"The storms here get pretty crazy." Negan says, joining Rick at his side. "They scared the shit out of me when I first got here."

"Yeah?" Lightning flashes, bright and threatening, in three giant waves, before thunder claps, shaking the entirety of the terrarium. "That why the glass is so thick?"

"That's a part of it, yeah." Negan answers honestly. "You'll get used to it, though. Normally, this happens five or six days a week."

A high-pitched wail erupts from the middle of the Alexandria floor--a wail Rick recognizes instantly to be that of his daughter. As nice as the thunderstorm raging outside looks, he knows Judith is terrified of storms and doesn't hesitate to wheel around and start running toward the stage, where he knows his daughter awaits.

Or assumes, rather. By the time Rick arrives, Judith has taken off. Jessie points toward a grouping of small trees near the apartments. "She ran that way!"

Rick nods and starts off in the direction he's been pointed to. He can hear Negan's footsteps behind him, but he doesn't pay them any mind. Instead, he moves as quickly as he can toward the trees, where he can see Judith crouched underneath the low-hanging leaves. She's got her knees all hugged up in her arms, and as the thunder grumbles again, she cups her ears over her head and whimpers loudly.

"Stop, stop, stop, stop..." She pleads, even as Rick's hand finds one of hers. "Make it stop, stop, stop..."

Rick's squatted beside her, trying to coax her out of the tree. It takes some effort, but with a lot of shushing and a promise not to go anywhere, Rick finally talks her into scooting into his arms instead of hiding under the trees. His fingers find her hair, tracing through the soft strands. He kisses the top of her head.

"It's okay, Judy. It's outside. All that thick glass keeps it all away from us."

Judith sniffles, her big eyes turning up to look into her father's. "I know. The big glass keeps out all of the outside. Not just the rain. But the rain is still scary."

She goes silent there, her arms curled around Rick's form, as Rick turns his gaze to Negan. By now, Negan has crouched next to them both, his brow furrowed in concern. He's staring at Judith with an expression Rick can't quite read.

"The rain keeps all of the outside away, too." Negan suddenly says, and Judith perks up at those words. She's staring at him like she did on that second inspection, eyes locked hard directly on Negan's with the intensity of a deer in the headlights.

And from this angle, Rick can tell that Negan's staring back, almost fiercely. His eyes dart back and forth between hers, as if searching for something that Rick can't see. Maybe he's just trying to prove to her that he's serious, or maybe it's something else. Either way, Rick feels Judith relax in his grip.

"Okay. I believe you."

The storm is still roaring around them, but Judith's tension fades, and she scoots from her father's grip into a sitting position on the ground. She crosses her legs and turns her gaze up to Negan, her head cocked.

"Have you ever been on the outside?" She questions, resting her hands in her lap.

"Lots of times, Princess." Negan smiles, and there's a warmth in his expression that Rick can tell his mind is never going to let go of, ever again. "I've even been out there while it's raining. Isn't that cool?"

"Yeah!" Judith grins. "That's really brave! Like you're a knight in shining armor!"

"You know what?" Negan laughs. "I like that." He then pushes himself up to his feet and casts Rick a grin. Rick knows it's because he's successfully managed to diffuse what could have been a very bad situation, and he's expecting some sort of gesture of appreciation for it.

He meets the smirk with a smile of his own. "Thanks, Negan."

"Not a problem, Rick. You got quite the kid, here."

"I do." Rick agrees, before he clears his throat. "You, uh, you know, you can come visit her and I more than just on inspection days, right?"

He realizes the error of his thoughtless words right around the time Negan does. When the man's smirk grows into an incredulous one, Rick adds a sixteenth tally to his Unsubtle Negan Lines list.

"Well, well." Negan starts, shifting his weight from one hip to the other. Rick nods warningly toward Judith--a silent reminder that the girl's five years old and Negan should probably watch his language. "Is this a budding bromance I sense?"

Rick rolls his eyes. "Just think about it."

As Negan moves to take his leave, he laughs. "Will do, Rick. See you around."

"Oh, and Negan!" Rick hollers. When Negan faces him again, he raises a hand as if asking for permission to speak. "The note! Look at it, okay?"

Negan claps the pocket of his pants. "I got this, Rick. Cool your nuts a little, alright?"

Judith, next to Rick, wrinkles her little nose. "He says weird stuff, Daddy."

 


	4. In Which There Are New People

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They go by 'Terminus', and for some reason, Negan thinks he's going to run their show a little differently.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahhh, I'm finally getting through with the world-building! Come next chapter, this fic should be way more exciting, haha. I hope you guys enjoy! I've got big plans for this thing.

_It's so dark that Rick can't even see his hands in front of his face. He doesn't know where he is, but wherever it is, it's not his bed anymore. He's standing upright in a sea of pitch black, and it's utterly frightening._

_Somehow, Rick knows he's asleep, but at the same time, he doesn't feel like he is. He can sense his own body weight, and as he raises his hand to try and get a look at it, he sees nothing. Even when he draws his fingers to his forehead and runs them down along his face, he can't see it._

_But he hears it._

_The dull scraping of calloused hands running across the skin of his forehead, and then the grinding of fingertips in a thick beard. The gnashing of his teeth together when he clenches his jaw. Every sound is so amplified that it's almost physically painful to process. When Rick moves to take a step, he both feels and hears his muscles flexing and relaxing._

_Is he...blind?_

_As if that very thought process is the one Rick's dream intends, the world starts to form around him. It's not that he sees the outlines of the physical realm surrounding him, but the sounds and feelings somehow put together a 'picture'. He can 'see' the vibrations of a nearby bed, and a table, and there are stairs close. Rick recognizes the general vicinity as his own room._

_His head throbs relentlessly as he makes his way down the stairs. The padding of his feet on the carpeted steps softens the blow of the sounds, but they're still almost intolerably loud. He knows they're necessary, though, so he brushes away the headache and crosses the threshold, past his living room, to his front door._

_The colors outside all have a different sound. The streetlights buzz, generating a 'yellow' in Rick's mind. The stone of the sidewalks feels gray, and the smell of the trees and grass and foliage around him bring about sensations of just about every green Rick ever imagines having seen before his dream took away the ability to do so. The heavy Vonan rain slams the thick glass of the terrarium, and Rick 'sees' blue. It's surreal and overwhelming, but not entirely unpleasant._

_Being blind will never be this easy, and that's why despite all the sensations surrounding him, Rick knows it isn't real. He decides to enjoy himself, walking barefoot along the cold stone of his floor, smelling the trees, the growing crops, and even the rain that's honestly so far away that it'd normally be impossible. The sounds suddenly become more and more tolerable, and Rick almost feels like he's on vacation._

_He's three sheets to the wind with bliss when the dream shifts. The relaxing floral scent of the trees and crops change dramatically, and Rick is met with a putrid stench--something that reminds him of death. It swells around him like bodies are dropping around him left and right, and Rick suddenly gets the feeling that all that foliage is now towering over him. He can almost hear it cackling, like the laughter of the devil himself._

_He smells blood._

_\- - - - -_

When Rick awakens, it's in midair. He realizes all-too-late that he's flung himself clean off his bed. Despite that, he makes a feeble attempt at breaking his fall. However, before he can get his hands out in front of him, he hits the carpeted floor face-first.

Now, he really does smell blood.

The abrupt awakening has Rick disoriented and hurting. His nose throbs painfully as he covers it with his hand and makes a clumsy sprint to his bathroom. Like a faucet, the blood gushes freely once Rick removes his hand. He turns on the tap and makes quick work of cleaning the red liquid from his fingers. Blood runs from both nostrils in a steady drip that borders on a thin stream, so Rick tries his best to clean his face and then grabs a washcloth.

He remembers the time Carl cracked his nose on his friend's shoulder while jumping on the trampoline, finding with some amusement that this isn't all that different. But the copy of 'What To Do When Your Child Is Sick' that came home with him and Lori when Carl was born had come in handy that day. Rick recalls the instructions: ' _Tip the child's head forward slightly and have them pinch their nose with their thumb and forefinger, using a washcloth if needed to catch any extra bleeding. Instruct them to hold their fingers there for ten minutes, and then check to see if still bleeding.'_

Rick also remembers Carl gagging and crying because of the blood clots that built up at the back of his nose and ran down his throat during the process. He remembers it well right now, because he not only smells blood, but now he tastes it. He can feel the weight of it in his stomach. Rick honestly doesn't know what time it is, but after that, he can honestly say that he's not eating breakfast any time soon.

After a good fifteen minutes, the bleeding has finally stopped. The bridge of Rick's nose is swollen and bruising, as well as his right cheekbone. He looks like he got slugged in the face by someone, and it hurts something unmerciful. For the first time since Rick arrived on this planet, he finds himself wondering if things like ibuprofen and aspirin are available. Hell, is there even a floor for proper medical care?

Either way, after attempting to clean the small puddles of blood from the bedroom floor, Rick gets dressed. They've all been given a small wardrobe (as packing hadn't really been a luxury), comprised mostly of loose pants and t-shirts, though Rick is one of the lucky ones who gets to keep a couple of pairs of jeans. He slips those on and grabs a white T-shirt, making his way back into the bathroom. He wasn't going to do so, but he's reminded of his dream and the fact that it's been a long time since he last shaved.

Strange, how things like toothbrushes, deodorant, and razors are available here. Maybe pain medication isn't as out of the question as Rick anticipated.

He lathers up in soap and gets straight to work. His beard is long--longer than he's ever had it before, so it almost feels like he's cutting off a part of him when he starts to shave it away. The bruising on his face is already starting to take form, and as Rick shaves the hair away, the mark on his cheekbone starts to look more obvious.

But that's alright, because it honestly feels so good to have all that extra weight off of his face. Rick runs his fingers over his skin, taking in the silky smooth feeling of a clean-shaven chin and jaw. He notices now that he doesn't have a whole lot to look at in the mirror just how tired his eyes are. Has he really been working that hard out there? Hell, everyone else is taking on the brunt of the grunt work--Rick can only imagine how tired they must be. Even with the extra time this planet allots in each of its days, the work is exhausting.

As he makes his way downstairs, Rick slips his shirt over his shoulders. He pauses about halfway down and closes his eyes, stopping completely. In his dream, he hadn't been able to see a damn thing, and yet he'd navigated these stairs like it was nothing. But the sounds of his footsteps are vague, and all he sees is blackness with his eyes closed.

"...Dad." Carl's voice snaps Rick back to the present, and he opens his eyes again. Looking up to his son, who is patiently waiting for him to continue his descent, he clears his throat.

"Sorry."

"You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm...I'm good." Rick nods, then finishes the last half of the stairs and makes his way into the kitchen. Carl is hot on his heels.

"What happened to your face?" Carl asks, cutting his father off in favor of preparing breakfast for himself. Rick doesn't protest, mostly because he knows he's not exactly Iron Chef material.

"I fell out of bed." Rick answers honestly, and even though he's a grown man, his face flushes a bit when his son bursts out laughing.

"That is not what I expected to hear you say." Carl snickers, before he starts preparing egg sandwiches. Carl's actually a pretty impressive cook, and him slipping in and cooking for Rick has been a ritual that lasted long before their trip to Vona. It's nice to see he hasn't lost his touch after three years eating pre-packaged space gunk. Even though Rick's stomach had been turning earlier from the nosebleed, the smell of Carl's cooking will no doubt help him come around again.

"Yeah, well." Rick shrugs. "It happened."

Just then, Judith comes bounding down the stairs, still clothed in her nightgown. She hops up onto her seat on the table, smiling widely at the two other occupants.

Frankly, it's a surprise to Rick that Judith isn't freaking out right now. The storm that hit yesterday had continued to rage all night, and is still going strong this morning. Every now and then, thunder rattles the walls of their home, but Judith acts as if her fear of storms is well into the past.

_"The rain keeps all of the outside away, too."_

Rick knows Negan probably doesn't mean as much as it sounds like he means by that, but he also sees the way it has successfully cheered Judith up. Rick can't help but wonder what exactly 'all of the outside' is. Is it a simple fear of whatever might be inhabiting this planet? Being frightened of the unknown? It would make sense that way--Negan's been outside, so there's a good chance he knows what lives there. Maybe it really _is_ frightening.

Either way, the storm does little to shake Judith's resolve now. Rick will cast a glance over to his daughter every now and then, see her tense when it thunders, but soon enough, she's back to her old self.

Rick can't help but think back to the days before they'd left Earth. A two-year-old Judith who had her own room with enough toys to keep her occupied for years. And now, it _has_ been years, and she's five years old and doesn't possess a single toy. Rick feels compelled to be sad for her, but she looks more at peace about it than he could even imagine. She hums a little made-up tune, drawing spirals onto the table, as she awaits her breakfast.

"Here, Judy." Carl says as he places an egg sandwich on his sister's side of the table.

Judith thanks her brother with a warmth that bleeds right into both Rick's and Carl's demeanor. She's still so young, and so unaware of what's going on. Rick has told her that the Earth was dangerous, and that was why they'd had to leave, and she knows that life is going to be very different on Vona, but her youth and the age with which she'd spent those three years on that ship all lead to a little girl who Rick doesn't think is ever going to take anything for granted.

He couldn't be more proud.

Either way, once Rick is given his sandwich, he finishes it, then ruffles his daughter's hair and wishes Carl luck at work today.

Rick doesn't notice that Judith didn't question the bruising on his face until after he gets out the door. It's not particularly surprising, but he knows how perceptive of his emotions that his daughter can be. It's...strange, is all.

He doesn't get long to dwell on it though, because before Rick knows it, he's greeted to the familiar faces of Jesus and Ezekiel.

"Uhhh." Jesus starts, and Rick feels him staring so intensely at his face and nose that the injuries twinge at the sensation of being watched alone.

"Don't ask." Rick answers, before he moves quickly to change the subject. "What's goin' on?"

"Negan sent us after you." Jesus continues. Behind him, Ezekiel silently smiles, staff held out in front of him like some sort of warrior. "He says we need to meet him on the floor under you, because they're getting new people today and he wants to get introductions out of the way early."

Okay, no surprise there. Rick figures it's been over a month since he and the others arrived on Alexandria. He's since learned that each community is named after the ship they flew in on, so it's not a shocker that it didn't take three more years to get anyone new.

He also finds it amusing that Jesus is the one here, as opposed to Gregory. Does Negan really trust him that much more than the older man still likely resting at Hilltop? Or maybe Gregory sent Jesus in his place? Rick doesn't really know.

Either way, he shrugs. "Alright. Tara!"

A dark-haired girl with a ponytail spins upon hearing Rick's voice, her curious eyes landing on his soon enough. She jogs over to him, tucking her hands into her pockets. "What's up?"

"Negan's sendin' me downstairs for a while. If anyone asks, I'll be back soon. And keep an eye on Judith for me, will you?" He knows he can trust Tara--she's been nothing but hardworking since they first started putting Alexandria together. He didn't spend as much time with her on the ship as he had some of the others, but he likes her nonetheless.

"Uh, yeah." Tara glances nervously between Jesus and Ezekiel, before turning her focus back to Rick. "Sure. You got it."

"Thanks." Rick nods, giving her shoulder an appreciative squeeze. "When I get back, I'll give you a break."

"Please." Tara rolls her eyes. "I'm a tough girl--I got this."

Rick believes her, and it shows in the way he nods yet again, and then follows Jesus and Ezekiel to the elevator. Faintly, he recalls Negan's rule about not going to the lower floors. He finds himself wondering if this is some kind of test, judging their obedience to Negan's leadership here, but as the elevator kicks into motion, descending, he figures it's too late to wonder about it now. They're either in trouble or they're actually meeting new people.

As it turns out, it's the latter. When the doors swing open, Rick is greeted to the smell of machinery and leather. Sheds not unlike the ones at the kingdom line the new floor, which is made up almost entirely of concrete. There are apartments on one side, and materials rest in pallets scattered about.

He doesn't know exactly what this place is going to be tasked with, but he assumes clothing is a big part of it. Clothing and maybe maintenance, going by the sheds. Surely, Negan wouldn't create another floor for weapons, but then again, the Kingdom also makes clothes, and Alexandria and Hilltop make similar products. The smells coming from the items on this floor, however, don't remind Rick of weapons manufacturing.

"Well, _hello_ there." Negan greets, practically slithering into the presence of the three other men. Behind him, glancing among the pallets, are people scattered about. They're few in numbers, Rick notices--maybe twenty or so--but Negan doesn't seem to be paying that any mind. "Follow me, boys." Negan flourishes both wrists, directing Rick and the others to follow him.

Not unlike Alexandria, there's a stage in the middle of this floor as well. Negan guides Rick, Jesus, and Ezekiel onto the stage, where he smirks down at the terrarium's newest occupants.

The speech he gives is not unlike the one he gave to Alexandria a month or so ago. It's riddled with vulgarities, and he behaves anything like a leader would, but he still somehow manages to hold everyone's attention. Hell, he's got Rick watching him like he's on a goddamn movie screen. Negan introduces Ezekiel( _'don't fuck with him, guys--he's got a tiger!'_ ), and then Jesus(' _not to be confused with Our Lord and Savior_ '), and then Rick (' _Baby blues_ ', which receives a few scattered looks of perplexity from the audience), before he closes off his introduction with a flashy, "Welcome to a brand new beginning, you sorry shits!"

Rick notices the energy with which he speaks. Negan's back arches and a big smirk plays out on his lips, as if he's controlling the very atmosphere with his own movements. It's odd, but Rick also recognizes it as so very Negan that he can't really question it. Somehow, it makes sense for everything he does to be exaggerated.

He then turns to face the three men on the stage with him, and his voice softens. The grin never leaves his lips as he raises a hand, motioning to Rick and Jesus and Ezekiel. "...Guys..." There's a long pause, Rick assumes for dramatic effect, before he swishes that hand over and out to the small crowd. "Meet Terminus."

'Terminus' is small, and everyone standing before Rick looks tired, like they spent their entire three-year-ride awake. Their eyes are exhausted, and a man standing in the very front is the only one bearing a smile. He's got short, brown hair and a strangely lingering gaze. Rick feels like those eyes are taking in everything, and he's briefly reminded of the laser vision in cartoons that can see through objects and clothes. He feels compelled to hide.

"So, guys." Negan's focus is back on the men onstage with him. "You're gonna help me choose the leader."

Somehow, Rick's not surprised. But unlike Negan, he can't spot a leader at a glance. He's not trained to look for qualities like that in a person. Most of his life as a police officer had been traffic stops and domestic abuse cases. Occasionally, he'd be called to a murder scene, but his job hadn't always been terribly exciting. He'd been one of the luckier officers, he supposes.

"...Can it wait?" The request falls from Rick's lips before he can stop himself, and a hush falls over the entire floor. Negan's gaze fixes on him, and his eyebrows go up. Rick can feel Ezekiel and Jesus watching behind him in tense silence, and the crowd holding their breath in anticipation.

"Excuse me?" Negan asks. He has this way about him that makes every response not in the immediate affirmative unnerving. Like he's going to react negatively if someone doesn't outright obey him. After all, Negan is sure enough of his decisions to pick leaders on the fly. Apparently this time, he's decided to go a different route. Hell, maybe he actually _is_ testing Rick and the others somehow.

"I mean, unless you wanna go ahead and pick, like you usually do." Rick retorts, surprised by his own steely answer. "Thing is, you might be good at randomly selectin' somebody to take over, but that doesn't mean we are. You give us time to think about it, and I'm sure we'll have someone picked out that keeps this place goin'."

It's quiet all over again, and Negan's staring Rick down like he just insulted his mother.

And then Rick notices something. Negan's eyes are dark, for the most part, but there's something different in his left eye. Is he wearing...a contact lens? If so, why doesn't he have one in his right eye? Without thinking, Rick pulls back, and Negan apparently notices that something's off, because he does the same.

He almost looks angry as he speaks again. "You've got one day, Rick. You can stay here with Terminus tonight, and you do all the detective work your fucking heart can take. I'm gonna come back in the morning, and you'd better have a goddamn decision. A _good_ one. I like you, Rick. Do _not_ change my image of you."

And like that, he hops off the stage, making his way to the elevator. Rick faintly feels Jesus and Ezekiel's hands on his shoulders, and he doesn't realize until they've done so that it's because his body was starting to tip backwards. He supposes he'd been a lot more intimidated than he was letting on. After all, Negan is all they have here on this planet. He's the boss. Rick's request had been pretty damn scary when you think about the power the boss might have.

He also feels like he has whiplash. One minute, Negan is friendly, calling Rick 'pretty', implying they've got a bromance going on, and the next, he's staring Rick down and all-but-threatening him. Who _is_ this man?

Almost as if that question alone gives Rick his balance back, he pivots and faces the other two men. "Will you stay here for just a few minutes? I need to go tell Alexandria where I'm gonna be."

Jesus nods as Ezekiel speaks up, both smiling in understanding. "Of course, Rick Grimes. You need not rush--do whatever it takes."

"Thank you." Rick claps them both on the shoulder, and then takes off into a full-on sprint after Negan. He catches him just as the man is entering the elevator. Negan doesn't protest, though he does hold off on pushing any buttons to get the machine moving. A hush sweeps in on the room as the doors fall shut behind him, and Rick finds himself feeling uncomfortable all over again.

As Rick works to catch his breath, Negan breaks the silence, almost instantly reminding him of the dream he'd had the previous night.

"The fuck _happened_ to you?" Negan's frowning, his posture unnervingly straight.

Oh, right...Rick's face. How he could forget an ache like the one on his nose right now is beyond him. He scratches the back of his neck, and once he's able to talk without gasping, he responds. "Had a weird dream last night and threw myself out of bed."

For a second, it looks like Negan isn't buying it. He takes a step toward Rick, wearing that same threatening gaze he'd held on him out on the Terminus floor. One step turns into two steps, and pretty soon, Negan's just barely a breath away from Rick. His presence sucks the air straight from Rick's lungs, and even as his chest aches for the ability to breathe, he just watches Negan up close--looking at the way those eyes scan his face, scrutinizing everything from the bruises to Rick's eyes and mouth, before he finally backs away.

"I believe you." He says. "It's just, if shit starts getting to the point where assholes are fighting each other, you'd better fucking bring that to me. There's too much at stake here for that dumbassery." Turning away, Negan jams one of the buttons on the elevator. Rick can't see his expression, but he does hear him continue speaking. "You need to go see Denise about your face. If your nose is broken, you're probably in a world of fucking pain right now."

"It _does_ hurt." Rick acknowledges. He wants to ask Negan why he's leaving the task of selecting a leader for Terminus up to other people, but before he can, the doors swing open and Rick's greeted to Alexandria again. Negan nods for him to go.

"Denise is on my floor. After you say your goodnights here, go see her and then get the fuck back down to Terminus--you've got a job to do." Negan orders. "Do it right, and I'll take you up on that offer to visit more. I do like you, Rick."

And then the doors are sliding shut, and Rick's confused all over again. This time, however, he doesn't have the chance to think too much about it. Carl's hot on his heels, clapping his father on the shoulder urgently.

"Dad--it's Judy."

That's all it takes. Rick follows as Carl runs full-speed across their floor, to where Judith can be seen standing. It's in that same spot Rick last saw her at, and she's doing the exact same thing she was doing before. Her tiny hand is spread wide open, and she's pounding relentlessly at the glass.

"I tried to stop her, but it's like she's not even here right now." Carl explains breathily.

Rick nods and drops to his knees in front of his daughter, much like he had done the last time. He catches her wrist once more, before it hits the glass again. Her hand is beet red, which makes Rick wonder how long she's been at it.

"Judith--hey, look at me."

Carl's right--it's like Rick's talking to a projection of Judith, who continues to stare out the thick glass. The rain has stopped for now, which explains why she'd even dared to get close enough to the window to do this again.

Rick just barely misses getting hit in the face as Judith raises her other hand and tries to hit the glass with it. He stops her, turning her to face him, and his blood runs cold.

Judith isn't even looking at him. Her eyes are focused so intently _through_ him that he just knows she's seeing something he isn't. At this point, he doesn't know what to do. What the hell could have his daughter so hypnotized right now?

"Go get Denise." Rick says, peering over Judith at his son. "She's on the top floor." Carl doesn't question it--just nods and jogs for the elevator.

In a different moment--a less intense one--Rick might've been proud of his son for being so brave as to go to a floor that no one on Alexandria has seen yet. But right now, all he can think about is how his daughter is borderline catatonic and struggling to rip her hands from his grip almost robotically.

"Judy...c'mon." Rick pleads.

"It ain't gonna work." Daryl's gruff voice catches Rick's attention as he stops at his side. He waves a muscular arm for Rick to stand up. "C'mon, we gotta get her inside--this place is too noisy."

Rick doesn't question how Daryl knows what he's talking about. Instead, he scoops his daughter into his arms and gets to his feet. The little girl goes limp in his grip, her stare still as blank and distant as ever, and Rick tries not to question it too much as he and Daryl run for his apartment.

"Key's in this pocket." Rick tells Daryl as he juts one hip out. Daryl makes haste in removing the card from Rick's pocket, and then unlocks it. They lower the little girl onto the couch in the living room.

"What the fuck is goin' on?!" Rick, fearful, brushes his daughter's hair out of her face. She stares past him still, and Rick silently finds himself hoping she's just asleep with her eyes open. Hell, maybe that's exactly what it is. Maybe Denise is going to show up, tell Rick his daughter has developed a sleepwalking issue, and will be just fine. That'd be the best case scenario.

"Relax, she ain't dead." Daryl warns, his tone almost biting. Rick still can't bring himself to question it, though. It seems like this guy knows more than he does, and one day, Rick will find out why, but right now, Judith is his primary concern. So he just watches as Daryl makes his way into the kitchen, wets a washcloth, and moves back to the couch.

"She didn't feel like she was runnin' a fever--" Rick thinks aloud, but Daryl ignores him. He just stands in front of the couch, holding the cloth in the air over Judith's head, and then wrings it out, leaking the ice cold contents right onto her face.

Rick sees her come to. Like light is being shined into her eyes, Judith's pupils shrink, and then return to normal size, and it's like she comes back with them. Her complexion seems to grow more pink, and her gaze relaxes.

She starts crying when she sees Rick's face.

"Daddy!" She yells, immediately pushing herself to sit up, and then leaping into her father's arms. "Daddy, don't be sad! What's wrong? Did something happen? Where's Bubby?"

Rick sighs. There's that perceptive little girl again. She's dragging her hand down along the side of his face, searching him for any sign that something might have happened to her brother. Tears stream down her face like she's been given the worst news in the world, and even Rick finds her emotional response a little surprising.

He traces his fingers through her curly blonde hair. "Bubby's fine, sweetheart. He just went to get someone for me, okay? You scared daddy, so I want to have the doctor look at you."

"...Oh. Okay." Judith relaxes in her father's lap, just as there's a knock on the door. Daryl moves to open it, and Denise and Carl come pouring inside. Denise beelines for Judith, who pivots in her father's lap to look at the woman.

"Now, what happened?" She asks as she gets to work checking Judith's vitals. Used to this from the ride on the ship, Judith doesn't complain when a blood pressure cuff is slapped onto her arm and a pulse oximeter on her finger. She tips her head to the side so Denise can measure her temperature.

"I think she's okay now." Rick says. "She just...spaced out or somethin'. Carl found her bangin' on the window, starin' outside. When we tried to stop her, she acted like we weren't even there."

There's some hesitation from Denise there, but she soon clears her throat. "Well, her vitals look great, so there's that." She unhooks Judith, and then nods to Daryl and Carl, before turning her focus to the little girl once more. "Judith, why don't you go play with your brothers, okay?"

Daryl scowls. "I ain't--"

"Okay." Judith obeys, hopping onto the floor and jogging off after Carl and Daryl, who seems to have stopped protesting now that she's got his attention fully. Once it's just Rick and Denise, her tone grows serious.

"You can rest assured, Rick, your daughter's perfectly fine." She starts, and Rick frowns.

"I know. Or at least, I think I know." His teeth worry at his lower lip. "It's just, this isn't the first time she's done it. Except the last time, I was able to snap her out of it."

"This isn't the first time?" Denise questions. "How many times has she done it?"

"This would be the second. But after today, I'm not takin' any chances. There's gotta be somethin' I can do."

"There is." It's Denise's turn to bite her lip. "Just keep her away from the windows."

"Why?" Rick's eyes narrow pensively. "What do the windows have to do with it?"

"Honestly?" Denise sighs, raising both hands in a shrug. "I don't know. She's not the only person to experience this phenomenon, either."

Okay, so there it is. There's the dark cloud in a world that had initially seemed all silver lining. There's something wrong--something that either hypnotizes people or...something. It does things to their minds, and Judith just happens to be the first one Rick's seen experience it. And it isn't like he can fix it--they can't go back to Earth. They're stuck here, because if they try to return, it might very well be to a dead planet.

"How many others?" Rick figures he's at least owed that much of an explanation.

"So far, three." Denise answers. "It hasn't been happening enough for me to give you any conclusive advice, but I can tell you that the negative effects are minimal. The trance your daughter was in? That's all I've seen happen so far. I'd like for you to report it to me if something different happens, though."

As a father, Rick of course doesn't like that answer, but he knows Denise doesn't have any reason to be dishonest with him. He also recalls that she had been on the Alexandria ship with them for three years, and with Hilltop being ten months apart from Alexandria in arrival, that could very well mean that she's never encountered the situation in person before. That said, are there other doctors here? Surely, Denise isn't the only one. There's just no way they'd undergo an evacuation plan with just one doctor.

Just another question for Rick to ask Negan, he supposes. Later on, he'll inevitably wonder if the man has taken the chance to read the paper yet.

"...Okay." Rick concedes. "Thank you for comin' down here."

"You bet." Denise smiles. "Come find me if you need anything."

"Alright. Goodnight."

As Denise leaves the house, Daryl reenters the room. He sees Rick's silent curiosity as to where his children are, to which he thumbs the air toward the stairs. "They're playin'."

Rick nods. "Okay. Thanks for helpin' with her, Daryl."

"Don't mention it." Daryl's expression is unchanging as he responds, and he looks like he's about to leave.

"What was wrong with her?" Rick questions before he can do so.

"...Dunno." Daryl replies, earning himself a frown from Rick in return.

"How'd you know what to do with her?"

"I didn't." Daryl grumbles. "I just did what I thought would snap her out of it. It worked, and now you have a new thing you can try if she starts in on it again."

Even though there had been a hint of suspicion toward Daryl earlier for what Rick had assumed he knew about Judith, it's gone now. Rick almost feels guilty. "...Oh." He also feels disappointed. A part of him was hoping Daryl would have an explanation in mind. "Alright, Daryl. Thanks again."

"Yep." Daryl nods, and then starts for the door. He stops, however, as he opens it. "She did say some weird stuff a few seconds ago, though."

"Like what?" Rick stands up from the couch so he can face Daryl fully.

"I tried askin' her what she saw outside, and she wouldn't answer me." Daryl clears his throat. "She kept sayin' she didn't see nothin', but she felt a lot of noises. Not sure what your girl means by that, Rick. Maybe you should try askin' for yourself."

Daryl leaves, and the door swings shut behind him, leaving just Rick in the living room. He plops back down onto the couch and closes his eyes. Today is definitely not a good day to spend away from his daughter, on another floor.

At the very least, he knows he can trust Carl with Judith, and he has a feeling that if something were to go wrong and Carl were to retrieve him because of Judith, Negan would let it slide. Rick knows first impressions probably aren't everything when it comes to Negan, but he can tell the guy wouldn't hurt a hair on a child's head.

Even if he is a big, scary jackass, Judith is an exception to his bad boy act.

It's with that thought that Rick resolves to do as he'd been asked. Now, it's just a matter of explaining to his children and the residents of Alexandria what he's got to do.

 


	5. In Which Decisions Are Made

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been looking forward to writing this sequence since about chapter 2. The plot officially thickens, lol!

Terminus, as it turns out, is primarily textiles. Things like making and coloring clothes, sizing and creating shoes. The sheds are mostly for production of these things, though a few of them _do_ appear to be for maintenance purposes. They're larger in size, and Rick assumes they're to hold a decent amount of equipment. Rick knows there's probably already a maintenance crew, but it's nice to see that Negan and his team are giving other floors a chance at doing their part in making sure the terrarium still operates as intended.

The people are quiet and reserved and they almost look afraid. They don't talk, and they keep to themselves. Rick doesn't find them out working -- he has to assign them shifts. _Mary, you take unit A for now, and Trevor, you can have B, switch out at lunch break._ But it isn't like the work ethic isn't there. It's more like they just aren't sure what to do now that they've exited out into their new world.

Rick and his group didn't get the luxury of confusion. Negan had selected him to take the lead not ten minutes into his introduction, and Rick had been expected to go from there as Alexandria's leader without a second thought. He truly does feel like he's been blessed with some pretty hardworking people too. But while the residents of Terminus don't immediately jump into their tasks, they still have potential. They just...need a leader.

There's one and only one that Rick has seen that possibility in. Everyone else is so silent and obedient, like slaves, to the point that Rick can't help but wonder what situation they came from on Earth, or what their trip here was like. Alexandria had been pleasant for the three-year trip, but that doesn't mean all the other expeditions are. Obviously, different teams take people from Earth to Vona, and there's got to be some chance that someone unpleasant rides with them. Maybe they all came from a place where they were conditioned to behave with this level of despondency. Or at least, most of them.

Save for Rick's aforementioned candidate.

The problem is, Rick isn't sure how he feels about this guy. He's the same man that stared him down during Negan's introduction speech--the one with sharp eyes, a calm smile, and short hair. He takes initiative on the Terminus floor, though. He's a hard worker, and he's the first to start cutting into the pallets scattered about. He sorts them and then loads the supplies in buildings by category. Rick has to instruct the others to do so.

Seems like a good enough leader, right? Well, yeah. If Rick's being honest, the man has all the perfect qualities to be one. He had instantly made a display of his intelligence, strength, and work ethic. He's happy to do his part, and while Rick helps direct people left and right, this guy is there, making suggestions all the way. Honestly, Rick initially didn't think he was going to debate much on who's going to be in control.

But that was then, and this is now. There's something...off about him. Rick doesn't think the despondency of the Terminants and this man's strange behavior correlate, but he does know that something doesn't quite add up.

The man goes by Gareth. On the outside, he reminds Rick of the polite southern boy who helps the elderly with groceries and attends dinner every Sunday night with his Momma. He's got a friendly smile, and his hair is neatly attended to, as if he hasn't spent the past three years in outer space. Even his eyes soften when he isn't trying to get a read on you. He's got a quirky sense of humor, but there's...something else.

It starts about midway through the day, when Rick finally has everyone organized to a task and is examining to see what their strengths and weaknesses are. Gareth is directing a man Rick has learned to be his brother, Alex, into one of the maintenance sheds. Rick's instructed them to start seeing what kind of work they'll be looking at in there, but as he steps in to see what's getting done, he walks in on a shared conversation between the two brothers.

"I think we should have more people working in the maintenance sheds." Rick hears Alex observe aloud. "Clothing isn't so important, but keeping this place up and running is, and not having enough bodies in here could mean getting killed."

Rick sees Gareth laugh as he rounds a corner where the two men are examining some large pieces of equipment. "Don't be pathetic, Alex." Gareth retorts. "Our group's small, and we don't have time for you to be weak. If you die in here, that's your fault."

Okay, so the guy's a little more smug than Rick had initially interpreted. Either way, he allows himself to speak up as he approaches the two men. He tries not to come off as too commanding, holding a thoughtful tone to his voice. "No, Alex may be right."

The way Alex regards Rick when he shows up makes it clear that he and his brother aren't always on the greatest of terms. He looks relieved, and Gareth's expression is unchanging.

"Yeah?" Gareth questions regardless. "How come?"

"Well," Rick nods to the admittedly large machinery, "we already have another floor workin' on clothing. That kinda stuff can wait, in favor of keepin' this place runnin'. And we have to do that safely." He shrugs. "If that means takin' workers away from clothing and putting more in here, that's what we need to do."

"Negan seemed like he knew what he wanted us to do." Gareth comes back with surprising ease. "He wouldn't assign us all this stuff if we couldn't handle it. And hell, maybe if a person can't do the job, they don't deserve to be here."

Rick frowns. "...Excuse me?"

Gareth cracks his neck, and then moves in close. Rick can feel his skin prickling as he speaks up. His voice drops to just above a whisper. "It's simple, Rick. You're either the butcher or you're the cattle. You either stand there and wait to die, or you do what it takes _not_ to. If someone can't do that, they're worthless and might as well be slaughtered."

"That's not the way the world works." Rick hisses.

"That's not how _Earth_ worked." Gareth says back.

From there, Rick finds himself doubting his trust in Gareth's leadership capabilities. Yeah, he's apparently got the strength and drive to get things done, but there's a huge difference between ruling with an iron fist and not giving a damn about what happens to those under your control. If he's gonna be in control of an entire populace, he needs to have at least some level of concern for the ones under his power.

Not one syllable of what Gareth said sits right with Rick for the entirety of the night. He keeps a close eye on the other man, and said other man knows it. Every now and then, he'll flash Rick a casual smirk, but he just keeps on working. It's as if he's aware that he's the only potential candidate for leader of Terminus. He's smug, and even though Rick absolutely hates the decision, he knows which one he's making in the morning.

He spends the night in one of the spare apartments, though he doesn't sleep well at all. His mind races, getting carried away at every turn. He can't help but wonder if Negan knew just how questionable the Terminus situation was--if this whole thing has been some carefully-devised test. Maybe he somehow knew Rick was going to suggest they take some time in making their decision. Maybe he was aware of the fact that it wasn't going to be an easy choice.

Rick remembers Negan's irritation from earlier, though. Regardless of whether Negan had expected Rick to address him the way he had or not, he hadn't taken it lightly. and Rick had kind of known that before he'd even spoken up. Negan's the _big cheese_ , after all. He prides himself over being the boss and making the rules. And hell, maybe a part of Negan's anger stems from the fact that Rick requested more time in picking a leader for Terminus, while Negan himself usually does so on the spot.

What happens when he tells Negan what his decision is in the morning? Is he going to be given a rousing congratulations for making the right choice, or was Gareth too obvious? Maybe Negan was expecting him to dig a diamond out of the rough, and is about to be sorely disappointed. What happens then? How is Negan going to react?

Also, Rick hasn't stopped thinking for a second about what happened to his daughter. He's so lost on it, from everything to Judith's trance to Daryl's words and Denise's hesitation. Of course, it isn't surprising that they'd come to a new planet and things would start not being as they initially seemed. This is Vona, not Earth. The stormy planet with seemingly no fauna, a microscopically more intense gravitational pull, and longer days. That is almost all of Rick's knowledge of the place. He's learning something new every day.

So a phenomenon wherein people experience spontaneous catatonia isn't as shocking as it should be. The real weight comes from the fact that Rick's daughter happens to be one of the people under its influence. As far as he knows, everyone on Alexandria is unaffected, and he has yet to hear about anything like it from Ezekiel or Jesus.

It hits Rick that Negan's been here for longer than all of the other civilizations, so he might know more. He thinks that maybe he'll be able to sleep easy knowing he has some sort of lead on that situation, but it doesn't work. Negan's moods shift like the tide, and there's no telling what kind of information this might pull up. Eugene spouts the word 'classified' like he's motion sick with it, and Rick wonders if what he's about to ask falls under that category.

But he's got to try.

It takes clear until the clock is flashing almost five in the morning that Rick finally manages to will himself to sleep.

And it doesn't feel like he's slept at all. To Rick, it's like he's just let his eyes close, and then it's time to get up. He's brought back to reality by a booming voice he now knows all too well.

"You sleep like a married man." Negan's voice observes, loud and abrasive as per usual. "All laid over to one fucking side like you've got an invisible line drawn."

Rick doesn't concern himself much with what Negan's doing in the bedroom of the apartment he spent the past night in. He's a little more preoccupied with just how heavy his eyes and limbs all feel. If he's being honest, he has no idea how he's going to get through today.

"That's because I was one at one point in time." Rick finally counters, pushing himself to sit up. His ears are ringing, as if he'd just about slipped into deeper sleep right before Negan had awakened him.

"No shit." Negan just quips back. "Anyway, rise and shine--you've got shit to do."

Rick thinks to argue, but decides against it. He instead just takes some appreciation in that Negan lets him use the restroom and brush his teeth before he makes him get started. He stands there like a damned security guard the entire time Rick is washing up.

He's rinsing soap from his face when he notices that Negan's just standing there in the doorway, staring. His voice is muffled in the towel he uses to dry his skin with as he finally speaks up.

"See anything you like?" His voice, even softened by the towel, is riddled with sarcasm. It's just a notch below 'what the fuck are you staring at?'

"I see a lot, actually." Negan says, and when Rick turns an incredulous glance his way, he shrugs. "If you're gonna get butthurt about it, don't fucking ask. I'm just being honest."

"I'm not butthurt." Rick doesn't bother trying to explain his defensiveness to himself. "Just...still gettin' used to your lack of a filter."

As he slides his shirt on and starts down the stairs, Rick can hear Negan defending himself, hot on his heels behind him.

"A filter doesn't have shit to do with it, Rick. You asked. You opened yourself to explicit fucking details. Now, if you want a lack of a filter, I could go into detail--"

"--Nope, you're good." Rick cuts him off, pushing his way out the door. As expected, Gareth and Alex are up and working. Everyone else stands on the concrete path outside of the apartments, waiting for Rick's cue. Rick sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose.

"You all do realize I'm leavin' today, right?" He ignores the way he can feel Negan's stare on him, and instead nods to Gareth. "That one--he's your new Terminus leader." The tone in his voice makes it clear he's still not exactly okay with the choice he had to make, and going by the unconvinced expression on Negan's face, he's picked up on the tone.

"You sure about that, Rick?" Negan questions. Rick's almost certain he detects some irritation in his voice.

"Unfortunately, yeah." Rick answers simply. "Can we go now? I need to check on my daughter."

Negan hesitates, and Rick watches him turn his gaze back to Gareth, who's just standing there, smiling that smile of his. When Negan sighs, both Rick and Gareth know he's sealed his victory.

"Alright." He takes a handful of steps, Rick a couple feet in tow, and stops in front of the newly-appointed leader. "What's your name, kid?"

"Gareth." He extends a hand, and Negan glances down at it.

"Gareth." Negan repeats, finally shaking the other man's hand. Afterward, he gives Gareth's shoulder a squeeze and nods to the rest of the floor. "Congratulations--this place is now your full fucking responsibility. Don't fuck that up."

With a shove, Negan urges Gareth back to work and then nods for Rick to follow him. When they enter the elevator, he does the exact same thing he did the day before and just lets the doors slide shut, not bothering to push any buttons. Rick waits for him to speak this time, silently wondering if empty elevators are going to become a sort of meeting place for himself and Negan.

At the very least, he doesn't look angry like he did the last time they were in the elevator together.

"Unfortunately?" Negan questions simply.

"Yeah." Rick says. "He's got some problems, but everyone else can't even make their own decisions, let alone decide for anyone else. It's like they're used to bein' ordered around."

Negan cocks an eyebrow. "I noticed that too."

"That why you asked Jesus, Ezekiel, and I to decide for you?"

"Nope." Negan shrugs. "I have my reasons for that. What the fuck kind of problems does this guy have?"

Rick lets out a sigh. "I dunno...maybe it's not a big deal, but he doesn't care about anyone but himself. He told me that if they die working, they aren't worth it anyway."

Rick isn't sure whether he expected Negan to agree with him or not, but he can tell the guy does when he sees the way he crosses his arms in thought and a scowl forms on his face. "The population here isn't near fucking enough to say shit like that. People are a resource, and I can't afford to lose any of you."

"I know." Rick agrees with a nod. "The only other thing I can think to do is appoint someone from one of the other floors to lead that floor....but the people there need a lot of directin'. It's a heavy workload, and Gareth unfortunately seems content doin' it all."

"Yeah." Negan sighs. "I'll talk to him. We'll figure something out, Rick." It's strange, the relief Rick feels when that smirk returns to Negan's features. "I'm not about to let this project go to shit over one asshole."

"Good." Rick says back, just as Negan pushes the button for the Alexandria floor.

There are a ton of things he wants to say. At the very forefront of his mind is his concern for Judith and his lack of knowledge as to what exactly is going on. He wants to ask Negan if he knows anything, but isn't one hundred percent certain he should. Not in the elevator, at least. He wants more time to talk about it than just how long it takes a metal container to climb one floor. But if anyone knows anything about what's going on, it's got to be Negan.

Second, there's the offer Negan made yesterday, about how if Rick selected the right leader, Negan would pay him and Judith a visit. As the elevator makes its climb and comes to a stop on Rick's floor, he can't help but wonder if his questionable selection falls into this criteria. Negan seems to understand why Rick made his decision, and if he's being honest, getting the man to spend some time with him also means getting to ask about the phenomenon Judith's been experiencing. He wants it more than ever when he puts that thought into his mind.

Either way, the elevator doors open and Negan claps Rick on the back. "You pass, by the way."

Rick frowns. "...Pass?"

"Well, yeah." Negan laughs. "I put you to the test and you fucking delivered. You could've just picked that guy and not said anything, but you actually spent a lot of time dwelling on that shit. You look like you haven't slept in a goddamn week."

"It's only been a day, but it feels like a week." Rick responds, smiling a little. He notices the elevator doors have shut once more.

"Well, it's been long enough. You got someone who can keep your floor going for a while?"

If there's one thing Rick's really proud of about his floor, especially after seeing how the Terminants operate, it's the fact that everyone on Alexandria seems to have fallen right into their roles as part of their community. "...I've got a few people, yeah."

"Then get your pretty ass to fucking sleep." Negan gives his shoulder a squeeze. "When you wake up, come get me. If I remember right, I promised you some Negan time for a job well done." He winks, then opens the doors once more and shoves Rick out. "We need one of you for every fucking floor, Rick."

Perhaps Rick should be flattered. Instead, however, he's just determined to get back and check on his daughter. Exhausted or not, Judith comes before any extra sleep or 'Negan time'.

He finds her with Michonne and Carl, who are all strolling together along one of the many paths that make up the Alexandria floor. They're all three chatting animatedly, and before Rick interrupts the conversation, he finds he can't help but smile. Michonne is always so good with his children.

"Hey." He greets, and when the three turn to regard him, Judith squeals and runs for her father. Rick scoops her right up and hugs her tight. "Hi sweetie, are you feelin' better?"

"Uh huh!" Judith says, grin spread wide.

"It hasn't happened again." Carl says from his spot next to Michonne, and Rick nods. He turns his attention to Michonne.

"Do you know...?"

"Yeah." Michonne answers. "Carl told me. I'm so sorry, Rick."

He shakes his head. "She's alright--just gotta keep her away from the windows."

Judith giggles. "That's okay, because it's raining. I don't like to go by the windows when it rains." She pauses, and her lower lip suddenly pokes out in a pout. "...You're sleepy, Daddy..."

"Yeah." Rick chuckles, giving his daughter another big hug, before he lowers her to the ground. "Don't think I slept more than a couple hours last night."

"You should go rest." Michonne urges, her smile soft and pleasant. Rick remembers at one point being attracted to that smile on the ship. Now, they're such close friends that it feels almost wrong to pursue a relationship. They feel like siblings at this point. "I'll keep an eye on the kids, and Tara and I have been making rounds together."

Rick lets out a heavy sigh. "You guys are the best. I swear I'll make it up to you somehow."

"You could start by taking it easy." Michonne retorts. "Your kids need you, Rick. Why don't you assign a couple more constables? Some more people to help keep an eye on things?"

To be honest, Rick doesn't know why he hasn't already done that. It's been over a month, and Rick and Tara have been the only ones making rounds. Tara's probably getting tired, herself. "Sounds like a plan to me. Why don't you and Tara sit down and decide on a few people? Let me know what you come up with."

"You got it." Michonne chuckles. She then turns her smile to Carl. "You've got work soon, right?"

"Yeah." Carl answers. "Just wanted to make sure Dad got back first."

"I'm alright, son." Rick gives his son a one-armed hug. "Thanks for checkin' up on me. Good luck at work today."

"Thanks." Carl returns the hug, and then flashes his father a wave, before he starts toward the workshop. "Later, Dad!"

Rick brings his attention back to Michonne. "...Thanks for watchin' them."

"Of course." Michonne replies. "You're doing just fine, okay? Come back to me when you're all caught up."

"Will do."

The two share a quick hug, before Rick disappears to his apartment. His bed, despite probably being the exact same kind of bed he slept on last night, feels infinitely better. He almost instantly passes right out, his face buried in the pillow and the blankets pulled up to his ears.

\- - - - -

As it turns out, Rick doesn't have to go retrieve Negan. After he wakes up, hops in the shower, and has a quick sandwich, he finds the man roaming around Alexandria, Judith riding piggyback in his grip. According to the big clock in the middle of the floor, it's just past fifteen-hundred hours. People are still hard at work on crops and children are playing together. Ron and Sophia chase after Sam, who is zigzagging among the paths. Michonne and Tara have an eye on Judith and Negan from a distance.

The entire atmosphere is pleasant, and Rick breathes a sigh of relief at the sight of it all. It makes it easier for him to depart with Negan to Hilltop for the 'Negan time' the man has yet to stop joking about. Judith is given back to Michonne and Tara and the situation explained. The girls are plenty willing to let Rick do what he needs to, and after promising to be back in business first thing in the morning, Rick departs with Negan for the Hilltop floor.

Eventually, they find themselves sitting in the brewery, a beer in hand. Their conversation is light enough at first, discussing what Rick woke up to on the Alexandria floor. Negan compliments Judith and tells Rick how much of a spitfire she is, and then he devolves off into some grand tale about a wrestling match Sophia and Carl had gotten into on the kid's lunch break. As it turns out, Sophia Peletier is one hell of a wrestler. It surprises Rick when Negan tells him the girl apparently learned it from her mother.

Carol's not exactly soft-spoken, but she's the last Rick would have expected to know enough wrestling to teach it to her daughter. She's been all smiles and home-cooked meals, and Rick has always known that she isn't fully letting on what kind of person she is, but he can't honestly say he knows exactly what she's been hiding. Rick supposes he should make an effort to talk to her a little more. If she can teach her daughter to wrestle, maybe she can help the other children somehow, after all.

Eventually, however, their talk shifts to something a little more serious. Negan asks Rick what kind of person he was on Earth, and when Rick tells him he used to be a Sheriff, the questions come pouring out. Did he ever witness a murder? Did he ever have to investigate one? How many arrests did he make? Has he ever been shot at?

And from there, it somehow leads to Rick's wife. It's an easy enough answer, really. Lori had died in childbirth, so while Judith doesn't remember her mother, Carl and Rick have very fond memories of her.

When Negan admits he had a wife years ago too, Rick is surprised. And he automatically feels terrible for _being_ surprised. He supposes it's not fair that he assumed Negan was single on his behavior and the fact that he lives here on Vona, alone. Either way, it's a tough topic for Negan apparently, because he goes silent.

Rick's just about to change the subject for them, in favor of discussing Judith's condition, when Jesus enters the brewery and rushes to their sides.

"Rick, you've got to come back to Alexandria."

"What's goin' on?" Rick's automatic thought is his daughter--of course it is. Judith's situation has been at the forefront of his mind ever since he couldn't snap her out of that second trance.

"We need you, too." Jesus rounds on Negan. "One of your men is involved."

The three are heading out of the brewery, alcohol abandoned, when Jesus leads them out to meet Maggie, who looks equal parts irritated and frightened. As the now-four of them enter the elevator, Maggie starts to brief them.

"Guess Negan's guys were doin' inspection again, even though that's supposed to be in two days." She glares at Negan, who looks nothing short of surprised.

"I didn't give anyone the fucking green light to do anything." Negan narrows his eyes back at her.

"Yeah, well, they're doin' it anyway." Maggie snaps back. "And now, one of 'em has Sasha in her apartment and we can't get inside. I had to come to Hilltop and find Jesus, who found you two."

As the doors open on the Alexandria floor, Rick swears he feels the warmth being siphoned right out of the air around them. Negan looks positively furious.

"Lead the way." He snarls to Maggie, who does exactly as he says without a word.

From there, everything almost happens too quickly. Rick can hardly keep up. Negan follows Maggie to Sasha's apartment, and then uses what Rick only assumes is some sort of universal key card for the door. They enter into the living room, where Sasha can be seen on the couch, shirt half-off, her eyes narrowed dangerously at a man Rick doesn't recognize. He's got short hair and a malicious gaze, but said gaze disappears the instant Negan's booming voice permeates the thick air of the room around them.

"What the fuck!?" Negan roars. One second, he's beside Rick, and the next, he's on Sasha's assailant like sticky on glue. He hefts the man up by the back of his shirt and launches him across the room in a display of strength that shocks everyone.

"David, are you out of your goddamned mind!?" Negan seethes, making his way to where the supposed David landed. Said David is on the floor, wide eyes turned up at him as he draws closer. "What the _fuck_ are the rules? What the _fuck_ have I engraved in the sorry skulls of everyone at the Sanctuary for the past five goddamned years?"

David swallows. "We...We don't rape."

Negan drops into a crouch, drawing himself dangerously close. "And what were you doing just now?"

Like the coward he is, David just shakes his head. "...I'm so sorry, Sir."

That's apparently the straw that breaks the camel's back though, because Negan stands up. He turns a cold gaze to Rick, Jesus, and Maggie. "You three, get your hands on him. Don't let him pussy the fuck off. Follow me."

There's no questioning it. Even Maggie's harsh gaze seems to have softened. She and Jesus tug David to his feet, and Rick leads the way, following behind Negan. They all file silently into the elevator.

This time, there are no words. The elevator, which usually seems to be conversation central, is utterly quiet. The ride up to the Sanctuary floor seems to take years. All Rick can hear is the whirring of the machine as it travels upward.

And then it opens up into the Sanctuary. It's got to be the most heavily-populated floor Rick's seen yet. It's all apartments and machinery and people working on different things left and right. Rick smells burning wires and tire rubber as he and the group pass by a long warehouse. Hammering and the usage of other tools can be heard all around.

Negan disregards this, though, and leads everyone to a building that looks like an apartment all by itself. He unlocks the door and steps inside.

It looks like a home. Yeah, it obviously is one, but Rick means that on a totally different level. There are pictures on the walls, of Negan and a woman. The woman's full of smiles, and Rick can feel the love in the photos just like he did when he looked back at old snapshots of himself and Lori.

And it's not just that. It's the feeling here. The larger apartment with its wide stairs and plush furniture. It almost looks like someone has painted over the original coat, even. Like this isn't just a house that Negan retreated to all those years ago. It's his _home_.

And he's dragged this man into his home.

"Get on your knees." He snarls to David, who drops almost instantly. Maggie and Jesus back away, and Rick turns his gaze up to Negan. There's something in that look--that cold, deadly stare--that tells Rick this isn't just about some 'we don't rape' rule. Because yeah, Negan's a loose cannon, but he doesn't fly off the handle over everything. And this anger...this is different. Rick feels cold just being around him in this state.

A metallic click snaps everyone's attention to Negan's hand, where he's whipped out a gun. It's a pistol, just like on Earth (of course they wouldn't be using lasers, Rick might have thought comically in any other situation), and he's got the barrel of it pointed right at David's skull.

Rick shouldn't be surprised that Negan has had a gun all this time. He doesn't know where the guy's kept it, but it's here, and it makes perfect sense that he'd have it on him at all times. Either way, there's another loud click, and then the sound of gunfire as the bullet lodges itself in David's skull. He collapses, limp, on the ground.

"I'll deal with him." Negan says blandly, and it's like everything drains out of his demeanor. Not just anger... _everything._ "Just get the fuck out."

Maggie and Jesus are quick to obey, but Rick can't stop himself. As Negan turns to head up the stairs, Rick follows him. He hears Maggie's and Jesus' footsteps stop, but doesn't pay it much mind.

"Negan--I can help with..."

"What, the body?" Negan turns to face Rick, scowling. "I told you I had it covered. _Leave_."

"Listen, we can talk about--"

"There's nothing to talk about, Rick."

"Negan--"

Rick's back hits the wall of the staircase before he can think about what Negan's doing. Once he's got his bearings, he realizes he's been pinned against it, and Negan is threateningly close to him--close enough for his hot breath to ghost against the skin of Rick's face.

"The fuck do you even think you're doing, huh?" When Rick looks into those eyes, he sees malice. Not the haphazard irritation over Rick having asked for time to pick a Terminus leader, or the sarcastic anger he'd had when he'd seen the bruises on Rick's face. This is different. It's almost like he's a different person. "What is this about? You want a friend? A _boyfriend?_ " Another harsh shove follows his words. "Well, I'm not your guy."

Rick's about to open his mouth to speak again when he notices that eye again. Negan's contact is gone. Rick isn't sure if it fell out during the confrontation over the past half hour or so, or if he's had it out all the time, but he does understand now why he'd had the contact in the first place. The milky, gray-green in his eye tells Rick everything he needs to know.

Negan's blind in his left eye.

Rick swallows a nervous lump in his throat when Negan releases him, and doesn't follow the man the rest of the way up the stairs. He does, however, speak up in the firmest voice he can manage.

"You're an asshole." He starts. "But you're not a bad person." Yeah, he knows there's a body on the ground that had been killed by Negan just now, but if Rick's being honest, when he saw what David was doing to Sasha, he'd wanted to shoot him too. Maggie and Jesus probably felt at least something similar.

Negan stops a couple stairs from the top, but doesn't face Rick.

"You said it yourself, Negan. You like me. So I'll take what I can get. Whatever you feel like givin' to me, I'm interested. Could be a talk every now and then, or maybe we meet every week for beers at Hilltop. This place...Vona...it's all we've got. And I like you too, so maybe you _are_ my guy."

He knows he's going to have to throw some more slashes onto his mental tally on Negan's vulgarities when the man starts talking to him again, because the implications there are plenty for the guy to run wild with. But after this morning, Rick isn't surprised.

Whatever's here on Vona...It _has_ to stay in one piece. Terminus _has_ to work, and Negan trusted Rick with it. He let Rick meet Hilltop and the Kingdom, and he's shown up at Alexandria more times than Rick can keep count on now. So yeah, of course he wants to get along with Negan. Whether Negan wants that or not, he'll eventually have to admit that he needs it.

But for now, Rick turns and heads back down the stairs. He, Maggie, and Jesus leave as if nothing happened. Maggie questions Rick briefly about what happened on the stairs, but Rick just shrugs. He'd been a little afraid, but not surprised.

They bid Jesus goodbye at the Hilltop floor, and Rick and Maggie both thank him for helping out. And then, it's business as usual.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're keeping up with my other fic, New World Order, you've probably already read the text I'm about to post, but for those of you who aren't, I just want you to know why my updates will probably slow down.
> 
> I know this is starting to sound like the skipping of a CD, but I'm sorry for keeping you all waiting.
> 
> And now, the bad news.
> 
> I recently ran into a serious financial and emotional situation, resulting in me needing to leave my current home and try and confront my financial and mental health issues up front. In the process, I'm losing my son for probably two years. If you want more details, feel free to read here: http://neganstonguething.tumblr.com/post/160500433977/this-is-the-hardest-decision-ive-ever-had-to
> 
> But the point is, I'm having to take commissions to put together all the extra cash I can as quickly as possible. This means that commissions take priority over fic. This is devastating to me, since writing fanfiction is often an escape from my depression, but if I want my son back before he starts school (in just over two years), I've really got to get a jump on this.
> 
> That said, I won't stop writing. This story and all my other ongoing ones will continue updating. It'll just be more slowly than I'm already going. Or maybe it won't. I might not have a steady stream of commissions all the time, and during those times, I will work hard to update chapters. But I /need/ my son back, so I'm going to try and operate as quickly as I physically can to get to the point where I can have him again.
> 
> For all of you who are so dedicated to this story and my other ones, I am so very sorry to make this announcement. But I promise I'll keep updating. Writing is still an escape to me--I just won't be able to escape as often as I used to.
> 
> Thank you all so much. I love you and your lovely reviews.


	6. In Which Trust Is A Heavy Topic

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy mackerel, it's been like a month since I last updated this! Thankfully, I don't think it's going to take that long from here on out--I'm far less behind than I was a couple of weeks ago. In any case, this has been a chapter I've wanted to write pretty much since the very beginning of this story. This is the real turning point, where shit starts to get interesting.
> 
> I hope you guys enjoy!

Negan doesn’t show up for inspection that week. Instead, he sends Simon. Simon’s not as unpleasant as Jesus had prepared Rick for, though he does possess a straightforward sense of humor that takes a lot of getting used to. Maybe it’s because he doesn’t spend half his time showering Rick in compliments like Negan does, but he seems to be an odd blend between business and blunt, dry sarcasm.

It could definitely be worse, though. All in all, that week’s inspection goes smoothly. Simon makes it clear that he doesn’t know what Negan’s expectations of Alexandria are, so ‘until the old man tells him’, he’s not going to be ‘that much of a hardass’. Fair enough, in Rick’s opinion.

Long after Simon’s departure, though, Rick finds himself wondering how Negan is holding up. Even after being slammed up against a wall and snarled at in such a threatening manner, Rick can’t help but be concerned about him. He’d shot a man point-blank, and apparently without thinking twice about it. Rick finds it hard to believe that that action and the closed off behavior following it aren’t somehow connected to something else.

Rick honestly doesn’t believe Negan is a bad person. Even after seeing him shoot David in the head, Rick feels like there’s more to his side of the story. There’s just no way Negan could have this big of a place successfully operating under his wing without some sort of amiable side to him. Still…why would he suddenly choose to distance himself?

Actually, the answer to that is obvious. He’d shot a guy. Most people don’t tend to react pleasantly to that, no matter the circumstances behind it. There’s a good chance Negan’s just doing what he figures everyone else was going to do to him in the first place.

And…what happened to Negan’s eye? It’s not a big deal, really. Plenty of people suffer from blindness. A lot of things could have caused it. Hell, maybe Negan was born blind in one eye. Still, Rick can’t help but wonder what the deal is with it.

Rick also isn’t too proud to admit that he kind of misses the guy. At one point, he even thought about returning to the Sanctuary floor to see how he was holding up. But in the end, he settles on the decision that when Negan does start showing up again, it’ll be under the expectation that Alexandria still be growing and running smoothly. Rick, even after his altercation with Negan, still possesses the longing to make him proud.

So he puts his focus on his own floor. He discusses with Simon the possibility of importing alcohol from Hilltop and starting up a bar inside one of the buildings on the Alexandria floor. As busy as people have been here, they all deserve a small break. A bar seems like just the ticket. Simon informs him that he can’t personally approve the alcohol import, but he knows Negan will ‘light up like a fuckin’ torch’ at the idea of a bar. So they’re at least given the go-ahead to start facilitating the bar, with the potential option of alcohol in the future.

With unoccupied apartment buildings present, it’s just a matter of getting a key card for one of them and bringing in extra furniture. Several residents volunteer kitchen tables and chairs from their own apartments, and Beth offers to sing a few nights a week.

Tonight is one of those nights. They don’t have any instruments, but Beth’s voice doesn’t leave a lot to be desired. She and Maggie both sing on a makeshift stage, while Alexandria residents take it easy for the night. With no alcohol yet available, Rick deems it acceptable for children to enjoy the night with them. So while Judith and Carl, Sophia, and the Andersons run around upstairs, the adults lounge around downstairs. Beth’s and Maggie’s voices operate in unison, and Rick finds himself swaying gently to the tune.

It’s now been months since they arrived, and Rick feels as if they’ve been too busy to really get to know one another. It’s nice to see everyone taking it easy.

Michonne and Jessie have become good friends. Tara and Rosita occasionally butt heads, but spend more time with one another than anyone else. Rick sees something in their interactions that makes him smile. Abraham and Sasha are now helping make rounds, with Tara, Rick, and Michonne on a different shift. A man named Gabriel has started offering religious services, though Rick notices that few people are attending. He thinks that maybe he’ll visit the other floors and see if anyone is interested in hearing him out. But for now, he relaxes at the new bar on his own floor.

“Hey.” A voice breaks through Rick’s thoughts, and he looks up to see Glenn standing over him. “This seat taken?”

Rick shrugs. “Nope. Have a seat.”

During the trip to Vona, Rick spent most of his time trying to get to know everyone on the ship with him. Glenn has always been one Rick is more comfortable around, as well as Michonne, and even though he’s quiet and often spends his time amongst himself, Daryl. Maggie is another he trusts strongly, and if she weren’t singing onstage with her sister right now, Rick is certain she would be sitting next to Glenn, smiling just as warmly at Rick as her husband currently is.

Now that Rick thinks about it, none of them have really had the chance to talk about this whole situation, have they? Not since they were on that ship, at least. It’s been all business, with Rick trying to get their floor up and running and _keep_ it up and running, and Glenn and everyone else hard at work following his orders, they’ve all been pretty much stuck to their own time.

As a result, the atmosphere here feels completely different. Everyone is relaxed, and even though Beth’s and Maggie’s voices are the only instruments in the room, Rick can almost hear the light tinkle of piano music and wine glasses, and feel the haze of perfume in the air. This feels like a rare treat, and it probably will continue to be. They’ve still got a ton of work to do here on the Alexandria floor, and once everything is put together, they’re going to have to work to maintain it.

“So…this place.” Glenn clears his throat, and Rick can tell it’s because the guy notices how he’s been spacing out. When he comes back to the present, he nods apologetically at the other man. “What do you think about it so far?”

Rick laughs. Glenn’s making small talk, and it almost feels like he’s meeting the guy all over again. Not that that’s unpleasant. They are living in an entirely new world, after all. Three years on a damned spaceship mean a lot in the vein of being stuck with someone, but an entirely new planet? Now, _that’s_ something.

“Well, we’re not on a planet that’s about to crumble in on itself anymore.” He finally says. He wonders yet again if the Earth still exists, or if it really has died.  “It’s different, but we’re makin’ it work.”

“Yeah.” Glenn agrees with a firm smile. “We are. And I mean, considering what we’ve been given here, we have a fighting chance. You’ve got a family, and…” He laughs, scratches the back of his neck, and clears his throat. “I wouldn’t mind having one someday.”

“Really?” Rick feels his own eyes light up. “Are you and Maggie thinkin’ about…y’know, tryin’?”

“Not actively, no.” Glenn shrugs. “It’s tough to think about that kind of thing right now. We’re all so busy, and Alexandria is still growing. We don’t really know what’s going to happen, but…man, if she just _ended_ up pregnant, I wouldn’t be mad or anything. We’ve got technology here, and medicine and homes. We could do this.”

Glenn’s words are as sobering as they are heartwarming. Sobering, because it really is crazy the world they’re in right now, and how risky the entire thing is. They don’t know much about Vona, and if Rick’s being honest, he’s not sure how much Negan knows about it. There’s no telling what could happen.

Heartwarming, because even in a life as scary as this one is, Glenn still likes the idea of moving on with his life. There’s a chance that a newborn child could come into this world, and that it could be the first human baby born on Vona. That’s a lot, and that’s pretty damn amazing. It has the potential to be so uplifting for others living in the terrarium, and not just those on the Alexandria floor. If Maggie and Glenn ended up having a child, it could really feel like this place is home.

“I agree.” Rick finally says. “And I’m really happy to hear you sayin’ somethin’ like this.” He reaches out, clasping his hand over Glenn’s shoulder and giving it a squeeze. “Just know that if it does happen, you’ve got a lot of people supportin’ you. And Judy would be all kinds of excited to help take care of a new baby.”

Glenn smiles gratefully. “Thanks so much, man. She’s welcome to it.”

The girls’ singing fades, and then gives way to another song. Maggie’s becoming a little hoarse, but she still keeps up strongly with Beth’s powerful refrain. Glenn turns his attention to his wife, waves reassuringly to her, and then brings his attention back to Rick. His voice lowers, and he leans in closer.

“Maggie told me about what Negan did to that guy.” He starts, tone suddenly growing serious. It’s a reminder to Rick that no amount of optimism can take away the reality of a situation. They’ve still got a lot to think about here. “How do you feel about that?”

For that reason, Rick genuinely contemplates what’s being asked of him. His gaze drops to the oaky-brown of the table his arms are resting on top of. “…I feel like he had his reasons.” He doesn’t have to look up at Glenn to know the other man’s frowning. “I mean, killin’ someone isn’t exactly what anyone wants to do, but from the moment Negan saw what that guy was doin’ to Sasha, he was an entirely different person. I don’t think he was seein’ Sasha when he saw what happened.”

“…Maybe.” Glenn concedes. “But who do you think he was seeing?”

“I’m not sure.” Rick’s tone is concise. “I plan on askin’ the next time he decides to come around.”

Glenn swallows, and Rick watches the way his adam’s apple bobs with the nervous gesture. “Do you think he’ll answer?”

“Dunno.” Rick shrugs. “But I have to try. It’s not just about what happened in his past. This man’s in charge of all of us, and I need to know just what kind of guy we’re dealin’ with.”

Glenn nods in understanding. “You’re a brave guy, Rick Grimes. Guess that’s why he made you leader, huh?”

Rick’s a decently modest person, so he’s not sure exactly how he should respond to that. For now, he just offers another shrug. “It’s just somethin’ that’s gotta be done. Anyway,” he motions to Maggie, who is waving frantically at the two men, “I think Maggie wants you.”

After glancing over and seeing that Rick is most likely correct, Glenn claps the table one last time. “Oh, yeah. Thanks, Rick. See you around!” He bounds off toward his wife, and she meets him off the stage, while Beth continues singing.

Rick glances about the room again. Rosita and Tara are arguing over decorations that they’ve made themselves, trying to hang them up on the walls. Abraham is sitting with Sasha, who seems to be in a very deep, heavy conversation with him. She looks sullen, and Rick reminds himself that he should check on her when she’s done talking to Abraham. Michonne and Jessie are mouthing the words of Beth’s song, and Rick assumes it’s because they’ve heard it during classes. It’s not uncommon for Beth to volunteer with the kids, as well.

His eyes settle on Carol, finally. The woman is seated by herself, her attention in no real place. Her gaze follows the walls of the apartment building, then lands on Beth, and she briefly glances toward the stairs, before finally turning her focus to her lap. Rick frowns, wondering what could be on her mind, and eventually decides to get up.

He takes a seat next to her, and when she looks up to acknowledge him, he offers her a soft, patient expression. “What’re you thinkin’ about?”

Carol ponders his question for a moment, and after a few seconds, she seems to deem him trustworthy enough to talk to. “I’m just thinking about what’s going to happen next here.”

Rick didn’t get to spend much time talking to Carol, but the few times he did speak with her, she was almost an entirely different person every time. Sometimes, she was friendly and conversational, and others, she was quiet and pensive. Rick had always chocked it up to her being mindful of the fact that they didn’t really know where they were headed, but the edge of suspicion in her voice now tells him otherwise. It’s less that she doesn’t know, and more that she doesn’t _trust_.

“We need to come up with a plan in case all of this backfires.”

Carol’s a lot smarter than she lets on. Rick thinks back to the wrestling lessons she’s apparently given her daughter.

“Like what?” He finally asks. “What could happen?”

“We’re in a glass container, Rick.” Carol reminds, getting straight to the point. “This planet is roughly the size of Earth, and we have no idea what exists outside of it. The air could be poisonous, and this glass isn’t going to last forever. Things wear down, and the materials here don’t seem like they’re from this planet. Earth had tectonic plates, and this planet undoubtedly does, too. One earthquake and we could be in big trouble.”

Carol’s got a point. Rick looks down, giving himself a few moments of deep contemplation of her suggestion. He wonders if Negan has a plan just in case something were to happen, and if so, just how many people it involves. The whole point of bringing people out here was to restart a civilization that would have died back on Earth, right? Surely, Negan’s got some sort of worst-case-scenario idea in mind.

“And I don’t know if we can trust our leader.” Carol adds, drawing Rick’s attention back up to her. “I know you like him, but he’s dangerous.”

Rick doesn’t speak this time. He’s frankly done enough thinking about Negan. His discussion with Glenn comes to mind, but he doesn’t feel like repeating himself. Thankfully, Carol isn’t done speaking.

“And what’s happening to your daughter?”

 _That’s_ a question that hits close to home. Judith’s been alright for a while, so long as Rick keeps her away from the windows, but the phenomenon, with all its lack of explanation, is pretty terrifying. This is also Rick’s own _daughter_ caught up in it, which makes it even more scary.

“Denise said she doesn’t know, but there are a few others goin’ through it, too.” He finally answers. “We just have to keep her away from windows.”

“And then what?” Carol adds. “What comes after that? Your girl lives in a box the rest of her life? Does she even remember what a sunrise back on Earth looked like?”

“She was two.” Rick doesn’t mean to come off as short, but it happens anyway. Carol doesn’t seem to pay it any mind.

“What about your son?”

“Carol.” Rick growls. “That’s enough.”

“I’m just asking you to be realistic.” Carol says evenly, and Rick gets the vibe that she isn’t trying to get under his skin. “We need to make sure we’ve got some sort of plan of action.”

Which is fair enough. Carol does have a point, and until Rick finds out what Negan’s escape plan is, they probably should work on some sort of ‘just in case’ measure. But the fact that they know so little about Vona doesn’t help their case any.

“…Do you have somethin’ in mind?” Rick tries.

“Not yet, no.” Carol frowns. “But I’ve definitely been thinking about it.”

Rick catches himself gnawing at the inside of his lip. “…Alright. I’ll put you in charge of that, then. You might try gettin’ with Deanna about it, too. She used to be a mayor—maybe she’ll know somethin’.”

Carol nods slowly. “Yeah, okay. Thanks, Rick.”

“Anytime.” Rick pushes himself into a standing position. “And Carol?”

She looks up to acknowledge him.

“Don’t be afraid to have fun a little, okay?” He attempts a small smile in her direction. “We don’t have to be miserable here.”

“I know.” She smiles serenely, her all-business expression fading for a moment.

After that, the night moves along without incident. Eventually, Beth finishes singing and moves to join the crowd. The downstairs of the building erupts in conversation, well into the evening. Rick decides he’s ready to call it a night, and as he spots Abraham and Sasha moving out to start their rounds, he heads upstairs to check on his children.

Upstairs, the rooms are still bedrooms. Rick finds Judith and Carl fast asleep on the bed in one of those rooms, with Ron and Sam passed out on the floor and Sophia snuggled up on a pillow next to them. He sighs and smiles. It’s been a long time since he got to see a group of happy children like this, and despite Rick’s earlier conversation with Carol, he feels some hope.

Either way, he scoops Judith up into his arms, still fast asleep with her head on his shoulder, and shakes Carl awake.

“Let’s go home and sleep, son.” He urges, and when Carl agrees and ambles half-asleep toward the stairs, he and Judith follow along.

\- - - - -

_Rick’s blind again._

_He knows it because the sea of colors that he can smell and taste and feel are surrounding him once more. Not unlike before, he starts in his room and makes his way down the stairs. The sound of the carpet beneath his feet rakes at his ears, but it all gives way when he opens the door and starts out into the open space again._

_By now, Rick knows he’s dreaming. He was last time, and the end result was a bloody nose. This is the part where he walks out onto the Alexandria floor’s sidewalk and learns the surroundings with his other five senses. It somewhat reminds Rick of a sonar, the environment swimming around as if the items nearby are beacons he’s drawing closer to._

_Except it’s more clear than that, and it’s more refreshing. Just like the last time, it feels like a breath of fresh air, and just like the last time, Rick enjoys it. His walk draws on, and even though he knows what’s coming, he allows himself to enjoy everything beforehand._

_But it doesn’t happen the same way. The ground beneath him starts to rumble, and when he turns his head upward to ‘look’ around, he senses shadows. They’re on the windows, long and winding and grotesque, morphing in shape. Rick can feel them transforming, gliding along the glass, their limbs tracing the outline._

_One of them raises a digit back, and then slams it forward, and it reverberates against the glass, echoing everywhere. It repeats the action, and Rick’s head suddenly feels as if it might explode. He spins, ‘seeing’ the creatures all over the glass, swarming and gathering, banging and slamming up against the surface. And just when it’s about to become too much, it all stops._

_And he’s left there, panting, hands he hadn’t realized had come up to cover his ears gradually lowering down. He turns slowly in his spot, eyes wide even though he can’t see. He’s panicking, but the world around him is calm. Everything has slowed down, including his heart rate._

_What the hell was that?_

_Rick’s just about to continue to walk, when the ground suddenly gives way beneath his feet, and he plummets._

And then he’s awake. This time, he’s lying flat on his bed, panting, his gaze directed up at the ceiling. His hands are in fists around his sheets, and he can feel the cold sheen of sweat on his forehead. At least he didn’t end up with a bloody nose this time. The bruising from his last violent encounter with the floor is just now starting to turn green and fade away, and he really doesn’t need to have to explain to everyone every time he sees them that he had yet another crazy night terror.

He turns his head toward the clock at his bedside. ‘2:34 AM’ it says, but Rick knows he’s not about to get back to sleep. So he turns the other way, deciding on a shower, and makes to climb out of bed.

But his blood runs cold when he sees someone standing at his bedside. Rick thinks his heart stops for a moment, and he launches himself backward onto the mattress, gasping loudly, before he realizes that the one standing next to his bed is none other than his daughter.

“…Daddy?” Judith’s eyes glow brightly in the darkness of Rick’s room, making the sight unnerving even though Rick no longer feels like there’s an intruder. Her gaze is pointed, trained right onto his own eyes.

“Judy…Christ, you scared the hell outta me.” Rick clutches at his chest, letting out a breathy laugh. “What is it, honey?”

“What were you dreaming about?” Rick can’t shake the feeling that she somehow knows what was going on in his mind, but he doesn’t voice that.

“It’s nothin’, baby.” He leans forward, kissing her forehead. “Don’t worry yourself about it. Did you need somethin’?”

“Nuh-uh.” Judith shakes her head. “I just felt like you needed me.”

Of course she did. Judith has always been incredibly perceptive of Rick’s emotions. She did a lot of comforting for him in the latter half of their flight to Vona, and during the very first meeting with Negan, she was there to offer him a reassuring hand. It’s like she’s got some sort of sixth sense for this kind of thing, and Rick wonders if ESP isn’t just a twin thing.

“I’m okay, Judy.” Rick smiles. “But thank you for checkin’ up on me. Look, Daddy’s just gonna go take a shower, okay?”

The little girl frowns, but eventually accepts his words. “Okay.” Rick feels her gaze on him as he moves to his dresser, rifling through it for clothes. When her stare doesn’t depart, he turns back around and regards her once more.

“Judy? What’s wrong?”

“…Negan.” She says, and immediately, images of the man talking to her, letting her ride piggyback, reassuring her during one of the first storms on Vona all fill his mind. “He hasn’t come by in a while.”

Rick picks up an ounce of sadness to her words, and after he has a shirt and pants picked out, he crouches before her once more. He tilts his head to the side, smiling at his daughter in the darkness. “Do you like Negan, honey?”

Judith nods. “Uh-huh.”

“Are you worried about him?”

“Uh-huh.”

Rick thinks back to Glenn’s words from the previous night. He sincerely hopes his intuition about Negan is right—that the man isn’t as terrible as shooting a person had made him out to be. Judith likes him, and even though she was lucky enough not to witness what happened to David, Rick has a lot of faith in his daughter’s judgment.

“He’s like me.” She suddenly adds. “And there’s this thing, right here,” she points to a spot right under her diaphragm, “that hurts real bad, like something might be wrong with him.”

Whoa. Rick doesn’t quite know what to think about that, but he tries not to dwell on it too much. Instead, he ruffles the girl’s hair and offers her another warm smile. “Don’t worry too much, sweetie. I’ll check on him first thing in the mornin’, okay?”

Judith hesitates. “…Okay. Thanks, Daddy.”

“You’re welcome, honey.” Rick kisses her forehead again. “Now go to bed, okay? I love you.”

“Love you too.”

The entirety of Rick’s shower after that is spent thinking way too much about something that probably isn’t half as big a deal as he’s making it out to be. The way Judith had been talking—the pain she had been describing—honestly sounds a lot to him like anxiety. She hasn’t seen Negan in a while, so she’s understandably concerned about him. She’s clearly warmed up to him a lot and just wants him to be okay. Judith has always been a kind soul. It’s natural for her to worry herself into anxiety about something like this.

Not that Rick wants her to be anxious. So of course he’s going to go check on Negan as soon as he deems it late enough in the morning to show up without getting yelled at for waking him up. It’s not like Rick’s getting back to sleep any time soon, anyway.

As promised, once the day has started for Alexandria and Rick has conducted his rounds, he asks Carl to keep an eye on Judith and heads for the Sanctuary floor. If he’s being honest, he too is curious to know how Negan’s doing. His disappearance is unnerving, especially since he spent so much of his time invading Rick’s personal space and following him around like a tail. He’d told Rick he liked him, and now, he’s gone doing what-the-hell-ever somewhere else.

In Negan’s defense, Rick had said some pretty strange stuff the last time they’d interacted. He’d basically told Negan that he wasn’t getting rid of Rick no matter what he did, and that had been after Negan had told him he wasn’t getting a friend or a ‘boyfriend’ out of him. Those two lines in conjunction with one another can sound awfully awkward.

Even though Rick’s by himself on the elevator, his face grows hot with embarrassment. He manages to shuck it off before he reaches his destination, however. His goal to visit Negan isn’t impeded by his thoughts, because no matter how flustered he is about it, Judith is still worried about Negan too. This isn’t just about what Rick may or may not have said to him last time.

Briefly, he wonders what Negan did with David’s body. He’d told Rick, Maggie, and Jesus that he was going to dispose of it himself, but what exactly _does_ he do with the dead, here? Does he bury them? Burn them? Does this terrarium even have a place for that?

Either way, he soon finds himself at the door to Negan’s home. He raps on it hard, three times.  Not surprisingly, there’s no answer. So of course, he tries again, and still nothing.

“…Negan?” Rick tries, speaking through the door. “Hey, can we talk? Judy’s, uhh, real worried about you…”

What he doesn’t expect is to hear Negan’s voice _behind_ him.

“Holy hell, you actually came to visit!”

Rick doesn’t know exactly what he’d thought he was going to see when he encountered Negan this time, but when he wheels around to face the source of the words, he sees a man in his usual leather jacket and boots, that trademark smirk back on his features, and both his eyes looking just as dark as ever. If Rick didn’t know better himself, he’d honestly think nothing had happened that had resulted in Negan’s disappearance.

“Yeah. I did.” Rick says, scratching at the back of his neck. “Judith wanted me to check on you. She said she got this feelin’ like you weren’t okay—”

“That’s fucking sweet as Candy Land, Rick.” Negan replies around the big grin still plastered on his lips. “Your daughter’s one hell of a person, but don’t place the blame all on her. If I recall correctly, you were pretty interested in keeping whatever you and I had going. Or did I dream that shit up?”

Negan just has this way about him. It doesn’t take much for him to make Rick uncomfortable, and right now, he’s doing so with flying colors. Rick isn’t honestly certain how Negan expects him to respond, but goddamn, he sure wishes he’d worded his retort a week or so ago differently. He’s got a feeling that Negan’s not going to let him live it down.

On top of that, it’s damn aggravating that he went and disappeared for a fucking week and was fine. As if it was for no damned reason. He just _felt_ like not showing up, and he just _felt_ like making people like Rick and Judith worry.

Asshole.

“I never said it was all Judith.” Rick growls, standing his ground. “I was just givin’ you your space, though. Thought you might want some time to yourself. I was gonna give it a little longer until she started worryin’ about you. She says she’s so concerned it hurts, Negan.”

Negan’s smirk temporarily fades from his lips, and Rick can’t help but devour it, a la ‘ _take that, you fucking prick, you’d better feel guilty’_. However, he’s back to grinning like nothing happened in a few seconds.

“Alright, alright, I fucking get it.” Negan surrenders. “But hey, I’m fine and fucking dandy, Rick. You and your little girl can rest your pretty little heads on that, okay? I’ll be back for next inspection. In the meantime, Simon tells me you’re working on a bar?”

“Yeah.” Rick appreciates the change of subject, and he doesn’t realize he’s being led on a walk until he and Negan have gotten a few houses away from his own home. He tucks his hands into his pockets as he speaks, walking alongside the other man. “Was gonna turn it into somethin’ for every floor to enjoy. Trade Hilltop some stuff from our floor for alcohol, and maybe we can get a group of entertainers in there. Beth’s singin’ right now, but if we somehow got our hands on some instruments…”

“Damn.” Negan blinks, clearly impressed. “Even worried sick about me, you somehow fucking manage to up the ante. Rick, you’re goddamn amazing.”

“I wasn’t worried sick, Negan.” Rick scowls. “I just figured you’d want the ball to keep rollin’ while you were gone. Time doesn’t stop with you, you know.”

Negan’s eyebrows both raise up onto his forehead. “…Huh. I suppose fucking not. Well played, Rick.”

Rick follows Negan clear out to a small garden on the Sanctuary floor. This place doesn’t look like it’s made for farming, but Rick imagines that if it was the first floor that people inhabited, it had to have something to start with. Either way, tomatoes and potatoes and other basic vegetables still grow within the garden. A few people toil away on the small patch of land, filling baskets with their spoils.

They walk in silence, and Rick finds that he’s still relaxed in Negan’s company. He had said what he’d said that night in Negan’s home on impulse, but the more he walks, the more he realizes he meant it. He doesn’t know about a _boyfriend_ , but he definitely would like to be on friendly terms with this guy. There’s a lot he doesn’t know about Negan that he _wants_ to know. And hell, maybe Negan could use the moral support of being able to tell him whatever’s going on in his head.

He obviously works hard to keep it to himself.

“…Negan?” Rick speaks up, and he stops walking.

“Yeah.” Negan stops as well, and pivots to face Rick. “Go ahead, Rick. Speak up.”

“What did you do with David?”

He sees Negan’s expression darken, and suddenly regrets what he’d asked. He doesn’t think Negan did anything crazy, but the recollection of what had happened obviously can’t be an easy one to process. The poor guy’s probably got a lot more on his plate than a person he’d had to kill, what with being in charge of this whole project and all, and Rick automatically feels guilty for having even bothered to bring it up. His own curiosity must’ve gotten the better of him.

“Nevermind, Negan. You don’t have to say. I’m sorry, okay?”

Negan shakes his head. “No, it’s a fair fucking question. You got to witness the guy getting his brains blown out, after all. Least I could do is explain. We’ve got a cemetery up here, but his ass was a piece of fucking trash, so I had him disposed of outside.”

Well, that’s relieving. Rick doesn’t know what he’d been expecting Negan to say, but at least he didn’t end up becoming kindling for someone’s fire or some crazy shit like that. He’s about to open his mouth to speak again, but another voice steps in first.

“Dad!”

Rick wheels around, and the look of panic on Carl’s face immediately makes him uncomfortable. Rick instantly thinks back to the phenomenon Judith’s been experiencing, and he automatically knows that this has got something to do with all that. But he’d blocked off all the windows, so how…?

“Judy’s gone missing!”

Rick feels his body become ice cold. The world stills around him, and he feels sick all the way from the pit of his stomach into the center of his throat. He feels his fingers trembling, and dread swarms over him like he’s in the center of an angry hornet’s nest.

Negan’s hand squeezes his shoulder, though, and pulls him out of his thoughts. When Rick glances up at him, he’s got a serious look squared onto his face. He nods definitively to him, and Rick somehow knows that it means he’s going to help Rick and Carl look for Judith.

It offers a tiny fraction of a percent of reassurance as Rick and Negan race after Carl back to the elevator.

_God, please let her be okay._


	7. In Which Doors Are Opened

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have been itching to write this chapter since like a chapter into this fic. Months of planning for this, the turning point, where shit really starts to hit the fan and the truth comes out. I can't believe I managed to wait this long to write it. I really hope you guys enjoy it as much as I did coming up with it.

It’s in moments like this that a person chooses to make a very grave realization of their own stupidity. Rick thinks back as far as he can—all the way to that fateful day, working in the police station office he’s never going to see again, with Philip talking to him. That stupid eyepatch, and that serious expression and tone of voice. That strange, relaxed bluntness. Everything about him had told Rick that not only _could_ he trust him, but that he _needed_ to trust him.

And he had. Like a damn idiot, he had trusted Philip. Admittedly, he hadn’t been given much of a choice. The option of staying on Earth meant the possibility of it ending not long after, but the choice of blasting off into outer space meant so many other risks. At the temptation of a chance for his children to be able to lead a longer life, Rick had blindly trusted Philip, embarked off into outer space, and flown to a planet he knows literally nothing about, with the hopes that things would be fruitful for them.

Philip wasn’t entirely wrong, but the lack of information Rick had been given is what angers him now. As he races out of the elevator and back onto his floor, he’s fuming. He knows Carl—he knows his son has already pored over the entire Alexandria floor for his sister, and he knows that the boy wouldn’t freak out unless he was genuinely concerned that something had happened.

Which means that something has indeed happened. And this time, that something just happens to be that Judith Grimes has gone missing. Young, nearly six-year-old Judith is off somewhere in this terrarium, or maybe worse…outside of it. She could be scared, or she could be hurt, or worse yet…

Good god, Rick dreads the very thought of that.

Carl sprints for the stage in the middle of the Alexandria floor, where Jessie, Pete, Glenn, Maggie, Daryl, and Beth are gathered. They all look equally nervous, and when Rick starts to make his approach, their gazes turn to the ground beneath their feat. They know his reaction isn’t going to be pleasant, and that tells Rick that they’ve all been searching, but with no results.

“Rick—” Jessie chokes, her eyes misty with concern and guilt. “I’m so sorry—I don’t know what happened. She was just _gone_!”

Rick shakes his head. “We don’t have time to apologize right now. Where all have you looked?”

“This floor’s been searched from top to bottom.” Glenn answers. “We checked all our houses, the trees, weeded through the fields, and she’s nowhere here. Tara and the others,” Rick assumes he’s referring to Michonne, Sasha, and Abraham, “are heading to the other floors right now to look there. I…I don’t know how she got out, Rick, but I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry about bein’ sorry right now.” Rick reiterates. His mind is going a mile a minute and with each word someone utters without making some effort to find his daughter, he grows more irritable. “She’s a little girl—she can’t have gotten far. Search this floor again—Negan and I will look elsewhere.”

Rick doesn’t know where ‘elsewhere’ could be, but with everyone else already searching the other floors with the other communities, he’s counting on Negan to help him search other places that he himself hasn’t yet explored. If Judith managed to access the elevator, that means she could’ve gotten down to one of the uninhabited floors.

_“Shit's under construction, and we have people hard at work on it. It'd be a shame if someone died because they were stupid enough not to listen to the guy who obviously knows what the fuck is going on around here.”_

Those words, spoken to Rick months ago, now ring heavy in his ears as if Negan had just bellowed them right into his eardrums. He has no clue what kind of construction is going on for the floors beneath this one, but if they’re as dangerous as Negan had taken the time to warn Rick about, they’re definitely not a good place for a kindergarten-age girl to be exploring.

Rick wheels around, waiting for Negan’s call on the situation, but he stops short when he sees that Negan’s spaced out, staring straight ahead. His gaze looks distant, the one good eye unfocused and almost glassy. It’s a strange contrast to the way the contact makes the other eye look. He’s not moving, and his lips are pulled tight into a frown.

“ _Negan._ ” Rick snarls, though, because he just doesn’t care right now. On impulse, he snaps a hand out and closes his fingers around the man’s right upper arm. He makes sure his grip is good and tight, enough to draw the man out of his stupor.

It does, and when Negan returns to the present, he glares daggers down at Rick and rips his arm free from the hold. “What the _fuck_?”

“I need you to focus.” Rick doesn’t give two shits if Negan’s his boss or not. Right now, his daughter is missing. He will do whatever it takes to get her back, and right now, he needs Negan. “We know Judy’s not on the Sanctuary floor, and we already have people searchin’ the Kingdom, Terminus, and Hilltop floors. She’s not here. _You_ need to show me where else I can look.”

Negan’s glare hasn’t faded. In fact, he looks downright fierce as he stares right back at Rick. There’s something in his expression Rick doesn’t understand, but he also doesn’t care right now. He’ll deal with it later.

“I _told_ you to keep your people off the other floors.”

“No shit.” Rick growls back. “Argue with me later. Please, help me find my little girl.”

At that, Negan seems to soften, before he nods for Rick to follow him to the elevator. Rick knows he’s taken a liking to Judith, so he has enough faith in the fact that Negan will put forth at least some sort of effort to find her. He also has proven on many accounts that he believes children are a huge part of the movement that is the settling of human life on this planet. So if he doesn’t care about Judith as a human being, maybe he’ll care about her as a part of his big plan for Vona.

They slip onto the elevator, Negan staring coldly down at the control panel. He pushes a button for the floor beneath Terminus, and then turns a very serious gaze over at Rick.

“Consider this a one-time pass to these floors until we get people on them.” He starts.

Rick bristles at the words. “Can’t the lecture wait?”

“No, Rick.” Negan snarls. “It fucking _cannot_ wait. Frankly, I’m pissed that this has happened. You’d better tighten your watch on that girl after this, _if_ you’re lucky enough to find her.” He seems to disregard the harsh, icy glare Rick shoots his way. The elevator comes to a stop at their destination, but Negan doesn’t move. By transition, neither does Rick. “You’re going to follow my directions, and we’re going to find your daughter, and then we’re going to get the fuck back up to your floor. Following that is going to be one _hell_ of a Come To Jesus Meeting, and then you’re going to _not_ let this shit happen again. Are we clear?”

Rick narrows his eyes, but decides he’s better off cooperating for now. “Crystal.”

“Good. Follow me.”

They step out onto a floor that doesn’t look much different from Alexandria. The only change is that there are less trees and little, man-made ponds are scattered about the land. The apartments rest in roughly the same location, though, with a similar treeline, some fields, a couple of work sheds, and the same big clock that hangs over the Alexandria floor. It doesn’t _look_ dangerous.

Not that Rick cares right now. Immediately, he sprints out into the surroundings, bellowing his daughter’s name. “Judith! _Judy!_ C’mon, baby, we need to get back home!”

When there’s no response, he turns around to face Negan. “Aren’t you gonna help me?”

But Negan’s off in that state he was in before, staring out into space. Rick notices this time that his arms are slack at his sides and his body turns slowly, rotating like the beam from a lighthouse. The sight isn’t normal, and it alarms Rick enough that he can’t tell himself to try and bring Negan back this time.

In fact, when Rick stares into Negan’s one good eye, he’s reminded suddenly of the way Judith had stared off into space the many times looking out into the window had rendered her borderline catatonic.

Negan takes a long, deep breath, and then breathes out. Rick watches him close his eyes, and after a few seconds, they open again. He looks defeated.

“…Hate to break it to you, Rick,” he starts, frowning deeply, “but Judith’s not here.”

“Figured that part out, thanks.” Rick snaps. “Can we keep goin’ down?”

“No.”

“But—”

“No, dumbass.” Negan’s eyes widen fiercely. “I mean, she’s not here at all. Somehow, and I dunno how she did it so quickly, but your little girl’s outside of the terrarium.”

Rick thinks he’s going to be sick.

At present, Rick doesn’t question what compelled Negan to be so certain that Judith had somehow gotten out of the terrarium on her own, but the serious look on the man’s face tells him that he’d be stupid to question it. He kind of wants to keep searching the other floors, but Negan’s suggestion gives him more of a lead than anyone else has been able to offer him, so of course he’s going to go with the only one that gives him any hope.

Not, however, without finding someone else to keep searching the other floors. Negan puts a handful of his own men on that task—men Rick learns had actually been part of the construction project for said floors anyway. It makes sense, because they’d at least know how to navigate without getting hurt, and they’d also know of small areas that Judith could have hidden in.

Rick and Negan, however, are riding all the way to the bottom right now. Negan has insisted upon taking others with him. Eugene tags along, with another doctor by the name of Carson just in case something has happened to Judith, and two men so deeply encapsulated in their suits that Rick can’t even make out their faces.

Negan’s taken himself a spot across the elevator from Rick, his back leaned against the rail and his arms crossed over his chest. He’s irritable, and if Rick wasn’t so concerned about his own family, he might have taken it upon himself to not blame the guy. He’s in charge, and things have so suddenly gone awry.

Of course he’s upset, and of course Rick’s going to figure out a way to strengthen the watch on the children from now on. This honestly can’t happen again, even if it’s just a journey to one of the uninhabited floors instead of outside. It’s too dangerous—they know too little.

“It’s so big out there.” Rick swallows. “I don’t even know where to start.”

“You don’t have to know.” Negan growls, voice moody like that of a grounded teenager. “I already do.”

Rick glances, perplexed, at the other man. “ _How_?”

But of course, the elevator stops then, and the doors fly open. Rick recognizes the area as the same one they’d emerged into when they’d first arrived on Vona—the long glass tunnel with the mind-blowing view of the flora and the water and the beautiful Vonan scenery. Had Rick not been terrified for his daughter’s life, he might have been able to understand why she’d want to get out here and see the world for herself.

God…why’d she run off like this?

“You’re gonna want to wear a suit.” Negan warns, directing him to a door labeled, in bright red letters, ‘EMERGENCY’. When he flashes a badge that opens it, Rick sees an array of extra suits, the same food rations that had been on the ship, water, and even guns.

“…The air’s safe to breathe out there, right?”

Negan sees right through Rick’s fear as he shoves the under-gear for a suit in the man’s direction. “Judith can breathe out there, yes. It’s not the air I’m worried about.”

Rick stuffs himself into the tight gear, and then yanks the outer portion being offered to him out of Negan’s hand. “It’s about goddamn time you tell me what’s out there. You people should’ve told _us all_ that when we got here.”

“Watch your mouth.” Negan quips, gearing up into his own suit. Eugene and Doctor Carson seem to be doing the same.

“No.” Rick bites back. “My daughter is out there _without_ one of these suits, and I have no idea what’s gonna happen to her. None of us know how to defend ourselves, because you all think it’s a smart idea to keep us in the dark—”

For the second time, Negan has Rick up against something. This time, it’s the swung-open emergency door, and he’s got the man hoisted a couple of inches off the ground, his hands balled tightly into fists around Rick’s puffy white suit. His grip is strong, and for a moment, Rick actually fears him.

“You need to shut your fucking mouth, _right now._ ” Negan snarls icily. “ _Everything_ I’ve done here is for _you people._ I don’t have to—I could be the big giant sizzling dickhead who uses my power against you guys, but I’m fucking _not_. The reason you don’t know anything is because we don’t know _enough_. The decade and a half I’ve spent on this planet doesn’t mean jack shit compared to thousands of years of discoveries on Earth. Give me and my hard-working people a fucking break, here.”

With a violent shove, Negan releases Rick’s front and then resumes getting dressed. Rick stares at his form, caught off guard. Negan’s cursing to himself as he fastens up his suit, and then offers Rick his headgear, before putting his own on.

“C’mon.” Negan demands, kicking a stray glove off to the side in frustration, as he leads Rick and the rest of his group further into the room.

Rick now knows for sure that vehicles are being made here. They’re currently riding in one that looks something like a small Jeep, with big, all-terrain wheels and a seat in the back with ammunition. The dirt on Vona doesn’t look much different from the dirt on Earth. It’s a pale, reddish color, kind of like Mississippi mud, and Rick wishes he could smell the air around him.

On ground level, the foliage on Vona is enormous. Some of the leaves are bigger than the vehicle they’re riding in, hanging heavy on wide, stout tree trunks. They almost dwarf the trunks, though, to the point that one has to really focus to actually see said trunks. Rick immediately pictures his daughter hiding under one of those big leaves, crying and wiping at her eyes. It’s not raining right now, but it could any minute. Negan had been right when he’d said Vona gets rain more often than not. It’s more strange for it not to. That’s one fact that being confined to the terrarium hasn’t hidden from anyone.

There are bushes and trees and Rick hears something buzz that reminds him of the sound a horsefly would make as it zoomed past you back on Earth. He doesn’t catch sight of it, though, which unnerves him.

Vona, at least the part they’re driving through, looks like a dense rainforest, with its trees all different sizes, heavily obscuring the light that the sun would be beaming down on them right now. Even though it’s not raining, water drips from the leaves above and pelts the windshield of the small vehicle.

“Last I knew,” Negan starts from the driver’s seat, “She was roughly half a mile out here. We’re about to reach that mark, so we’ll fan out here in a second and start searching.” He lifts his right hand up, where there’s a band that reminds Rick of a house arrest bracelet wrapped around his wrist. One LED light on the band blinks a vibrant green. “This thing is your lifeline. Do not lose it. We’ll regroup at our starting point in an hour.”

Eugene takes over at the look of confusion on Rick’s face. “The bracelets emit a high-frequency soundwave we’ve learned over years of intensive study are not pleasant to the senses of our resident mystery monsters. Simply put, you can not let these guys touch you, and these bracelets help to make sure that happens.”

“…What happens if they touch us?” Rick swallows nervously.

“We’re here.” Negan interjects, the vehicle coming to a stop next to a bed of bright yellow and red and orange flowers. Their petals are big too, but not nearly as big as the leaves on the trees. “Rick and I’ll go straight. Eugene, you and Carson go this way,” he motions left, “and Brady and Dominic,” the men Rick couldn’t see through the suits, “take the opposite. Remember: one hour.”

Vona is so eerily quiet that Rick almost feels as if it’s completely uninhabited. Had it not been for the strange buzzing sound he’d heard earlier, he might have been convinced of such a fact. But truth is, he’s not. Not now that his daughter is out here and at risk. He can’t jump to any conclusions until he’s got her back safe on the Alexandria floor.

He and Negan are silent as they pore through the dense foliage. Negan’s focused on peering under every leaf, and between every tree trunk. Rick would have figured they’d be armed, but Negan doesn’t have anything more than a knife for the thick woods around them.

“…I’m sorry, Negan.” Rick finally says, desperate to break the silence. He notices that Negan doesn’t spare a glance in his direction. “I’m just worried about Judith. Doesn’t mean I should’ve said the things I said.”

Negan doesn’t answer. Instead, he seems more focused on vaulting over a tree root that crosses their path. Rick follows suit.

“I’m sure you’ve got a lot on your plate, and this place isn’t easy to run. Hell, Alexandria’s tough, so I can only imagine what the whole damn planet is like.”

Negan keeps walking. However, he does finally respond, which Rick takes some relief in.

“When I first came here from Earth,” He starts, chopping away dense brush in his path, “I’m not sure what the fuck I expected. Maybe I’d get here, start discovering badass new species, and you people would be on the outside instead of in the big fucking glass case you’re in right now. It never once occurred to me that the Earth itself took millennia to even halfway be discovered. Hell, when I left, there was still shit that people were discovering. One guy…one team, how in the fuck could we make that much progress?”

Rick feels especially guilty, now. He focuses on searching for Judith, but Negan’s words aren’t spoken to deaf ears.

“I mean, we got this far! The terrarium’s a fucking godsend, and we’ve done a hell of a lot of exploring. I’ve got guys out there right now, taking pictures and specimens and learning the lay of the land. The science is essentially the same, but the species…we haven’t discovered much. Mostly plant life. We still don’t know what’s edible and what’s not. The life we have in that terrarium? The livestock? That’s probably going to be integrated into life out here once we decide it’s a good idea to do so. Maybe one day, we can try something else, but for now…”

Negan sighs and stops walking. He faces Rick, looking defeated. “Look, the point is, I didn’t know what I was getting into when I got here. I thought I did, but…this kind of thing takes as long-ass fucking time. I’m sorry I don’t have more information to give you, but I don’t have a lot, myself.”

Rick’s gaze travels down to the ground, and then back up to Negan. He shakes his head, though Negan probably can’t tell through the thick bubble of their suits. “It’s okay. I’m sorry too, Negan.”

Negan shrugs. “It’s water under the bridge if you’ll let it be.”

Rick nods. “Water under the bridge. Now, let’s go find Judy.”

An hour passes, and the group finds themselves together once more, with no Judith to be found. The rain has since started up again, and Rick finds he’s mentally thanking his lucky stars for his suit, which seems to be pretty rain-resistant. Hell, even the thick glass headpiece repels the water like it’s got Rain-Guard on it or something.

But none of it matters without Judith back safe. The atmosphere surrounding them and the Jeep they’ve all rejoined one another at is grim. Most everyone is quiet, save for Carson, who finally speaks up.

“We’ve got a handful of hours before it starts getting dark. Searching for her at night is going to be pointless.”

“That still gives us that many hours, though.” Rick suggests. “We should keep searchin’.”

“But where?” One of the suit-clad men Rick now knows to be Dominic asks. “We’ve got zero idea where this girl is.”

“She can’t have gotten far.” Rick tries. “She’s been on foot, and we drove out here.”

“We don’t know how long she’s been out of the terrarium for.” Eugene adds. “She could be miles out by now.”

“I’m not goin’ back until I have my daughter.” Rick growls. “You wouldn’t either if it was your child.”

“With all due respect,” Eugene replies, “you don’t know me. You have no idea what inclinations I may or may not have in regards to my own offspring.”

“Shut up.” Rick snaps. “I’m goin’ back out there.”

“Excuse me, Rick,” Negan joins in, “but what the fuck? We’re a group—we need to operate like one.”

Rick glares at him. “Then tell your _group_ to keep lookin’ for Judith.”

Negan sighs. Rick can tell he wants to disagree, but something in him makes him concede. He faces everyone else. “Three hours. We regroup. If we don’t find the girl, we’ll…figure out what to do from there.”

“…Thank you.” Rick offers Negan an appreciative smile. “I just want Judy back…”

“I know, Rick.” Negan answers amidst another sigh. “I know you do. C’mon, let’s get moving.”

The rain only gets heavier as the search continues. The dense wind that spent its time beating on the windows of the terrarium doesn’t hold a candle to what’s going on outside right now. Rick vaguely remembers Negan telling him that the storms on this planet are powerful, but this is far more than he’d expected.

The wind blows the trees in all different directions, letting rain in in thick, heavy spurts that cloud Rick’s vision and make it difficult for him to walk in a straight line. He tries to speak to Negan, but he can’t hear the other man over the howling wind gusts. He figures screaming out for Judith is all but pointless now, as well.

Rick raises an arm to block out some of the downpour, but to no avail. The storm continues to rage, ever powerful and demanding and roaring. The sound is so loud that it’s making Rick nauseous, and if not for the determination to find Judith, he’d have toppled over and tried to get his bearings long ago. But he has to keep up with Negan, and like hell is he giving up until he’s got his little girl back.

What would Carl think if he came back empty-handed?

Something catches his hand, and when Rick looks down, he sees another gloved hand curled around his own. He turns a surprised gaze up to Negan, and just barely makes out the nod of the other man’s head through his suit. He gives Negan’s hand a squeeze, and then they continue moving.

Instantly, he feels more grounded. Negan’s been through this kind of weather, right? He knows what he’s doing, and he can probably see better than Rick, even with blindness in one eye. His grip is so strong, and so incredibly reassuring, that it warms Rick right to the core despite the cold wind gusts and harsh rain cooling the outside of his suit.

“Shit!” Rick barely hears Negan roar as lightning flashes in the near distance. It hits a tree dead-on and ignites the trunk, sending the entire thing tumbling over. The impact it makes on the ground is so loud that Rick curses and lets go of Negan’s hand. He stumbles and falls flat on his ass on the scattered tree roots and soil.

He’s still struggling to reorient himself when he feels Negan’s hand yank him up by the arm, tugging him away from the dying fire and out of the downpour. He practically drags Rick underneath a faraway tree and beneath its many large leaves. Panting, he flops down and rests back against the tree.

When Rick can focus again, he realizes with crippling anxiety that Judith is out in this weather, with that fierce lightning and the pouring rain, and no suit to protect her from _whatever_ is out here. And it’s all while he and Negan sit on their asses underneath a tree. God, please let her be okay…

Negan flips a switch on the front of his suit and then pops his headgear clean off, dumping it aside unceremoniously. He looks as frustrated as Rick feels.

Rick follows suit and then turns his gaze to Negan.

“It’s not looking good, Rick.” He points out, his voice heavy with disdain. “We can’t search right now. Hopefully, your daughter’s smart enough to take fucking shelter.”

“I hope so too.” Words aren’t really doing them any good either, and Rick can’t honestly think of anything good to say. He feels hopeless right now, and if the storm keeps up like it’s going at present, they’re not going to make it back in time to head back.

Not that Rick’s going to head back, but Negan and the others…they didn’t ask for this. Rick will honestly take all the help he can get, but that doesn’t mean everyone feels content being out here all night long. And someone’s got to get back to Carl and the others and explain the situation. This whole thing is _fucked_.

“…What do we do?” Rick then asks, desperate. Negan’s the only one with any answers right now. He’s been out here before, and while that doesn’t mean he knows everything there is to know about Vona and its storms and its scenery, it could mean that he might have an inkling of an idea what to do until they _can_ search.

“I tried to find her.” Negan groans. “I can’t sense anything with the rain and the thunder and shit getting in the way.”

“…Sense?” Rick’s expression darkens, as he leans in. The way Negan says that worries him, and makes his stomach turn uncomfortably. Something’s not right about Negan, and Rick needs to know. He’s obviously not a terrible person, and he’s definitely not the enemy, but he’s not _right_ , either. He’s been hiding something, and he’s been dodging the question every time Rick’s tried to ask today. “Negan, what do you mean?”

“I’m not talking over the rain right now, Rick.” Of course, Negan skirts the topic again. It’s getting frustrating and irritating. “I’ll explain later. You should sleep just in case the rain lets up soon so we can keep looking.”

“…We’re gonna keep lookin’?” Rick dismisses his earlier question at the hope of finding his daughter.

“I don’t know about the others, honestly.” Negan answers. “But I’d be a fucking prick to leave you out here to find her by yourself. She’s so _young_ , Rick.”

“She spent most of her growin’ years on that ship.” Rick adds. “She didn’t know how to survive on Earth, let alone here.”

“…I’m so sorry.” Negan swallows. “I’m so fucking sorry, Rick.” He leans back, resting his head against the trunk of their tree-hideout, and Rick buckles forward, hugging his knees. He watches Negan’s eyes fall shut and a frustrated sigh escape his lips. He’s really beaten up about this, and it occurs to Rick that part of Negan’s earlier irritability might have been that concern manifested. Negan has been friendly with Judith from the start. He probably respects her a lot.

Rick’s heart swells, even though it’s still somewhere down in the pit of his stomach. He feels just a fraction of a percent less sick, however.

Rick doesn’t realize he’d fallen asleep until he’s jarred awake by the sudden heaving sound next to him. He shakes his head, willing the sleep away, just in time to look at Negan and see the other man doubled over onto the ground.

“Shit! Negan!” Rick rounds on him as he empties his stomach onto the ground next to the tree trunk. He moves to put a hand on his partner’s shoulder, but Negan stops him. He coughs, heaves again, and then points up and to his left. Rick turns his head in the direction he’s being pointed, and he swears he can feel the air being sucked right out of his lungs.

There’s something whispy dancing about in the air ten or so feet ahead of them. The rain has stopped altogether, so the thing is visible clear as day. It looks something like a black cloud, shadowy and semi-transparent, but it’s almost humanoid in shape. It’s got a human head and long, lanky humanoid limbs, with fingers that bend in all kinds of different directions, and it’s suspended in the air, its long legs dangling limply as it does so.

The most chilling part about the thing is that it has no eyes, ears, or mouth. And even more terrifying than that is the fact that it’s clutching a limp Judith in its arms.

“Oh my god!” Rick’s on his feet in an instant, headgear still abandoned on the ground, as he sprints toward the form carrying his daughter. She’s soaked to the bone, her hair tangled and soaked in mud, and her mouth hangs slightly open. If not for the pinkish tinge to her muddy skin or the barely noticeable rise and fall of her chest, Rick would think she was dead.

But she’s not, and this thing seems to be giving her back to him. It flutters toward him, extending the little girl out into his direction. However, before it can get close enough, it recoils.

…Right. The wristband Negan and Eugene had been talking about before. Rick’s about to tear it clean off, but the black, whispy humanoid merely backs up and floats down to the ground, lowering the unconscious girl to the soil beneath it.

And then in the blink of an eye, it’s gone.

“Shit…Rick, oh fuck!” Negan coughs as he finally manages to jog to Rick’s side. “Is she alright?”

“I don’t know.” Rick shakes his head, before he scoops the little girl up. “She’s not dead, but I don’t know what happened. We have to get her to Doctor Carson.”

“Yeah, definitely.” Negan agrees.

Thankfully, Rick has Negan to count on for directions. The man apparently has one hell of a keen memory, because he walks them through their path in reverse like they’d just done it five minutes ago. He lets Negan lead the way, pulling aside bushes and helping Rick over tree roots while he carries Judith in his arms. It takes some time, but they finally reach the vehicle to find that everyone else is waiting for them.

They all look just as exhausted as Rick feels, and he sees the relief on their faces when they spot the girl in his arms. It’s probably about halfway through the night, and Rick feels a heavy wave of appreciation toward the others for waiting it out for the rest of their crew.

“Holy shit!” Brady cheers. “You found her!”

“Thank _fuck_ we found her.” Negan corrects, laughing.

Soon enough, they’re riding the elevator all the way up to the Sanctuary floor and heading right into Carson’s home, which apparently doubles as a doctor’s office. Sure enough, there’s a room specifically set aside for medical practice, with an exam table and cabinets loaded with gauze and peroxide and other things Rick doesn’t know the name to.

Judith is still out cold as Rick lowers her down onto the table. The doctor sweeps in and starts checking her out. While he does so, Rick and Negan strip their suits off.

“Her vitals are good.” He says as he removes a blood pressure cuff from Judith’s arm. “Everything’s stable, and her breathing is normal. I’m not sure what knocked her out, but she should be coming out of it soon.”

As if prompted by the good doctor’s statement, Judith groans. Rick sweeps in next to the table, and watches her eyes flutter open.

And then his heart plummets.

His wide eyes stare down into hers. The once vibrant blue orbs are now a hazy, milky greenish-gray, identical to Negan’s left eye. She’s staring straight ahead, not meeting her father’s gaze.

She’s blind.

Rick turns his focus up to Negan, because what other lead does he have? What he sees is a man gawking down at the girl in horror, both of his own eyes so wide that one might almost think Judith was his daughter, too.

Without thinking, Rick darts around the table and slugs Negan right on the face.


	8. In Which Rick Gets Answers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so, so sorry this took so long. For those of you who don't already know, I've encountered a pretty rough financial situation and have taken on two jobs to help accommodate it. On top of that, the week before this last one was Regan Week on Tumblr, so it kept me pretty busy lol. 
> 
> I'm trying to get into a schedule with work so that I'll be able to keep working on updates, but it's probably safe to assume it could take a while for me to update. Rest assured, however, that it's not going away permanently. I've got no intention on abandoning any of my fics. Thanks to those who have been bearing with me! Your comments and loyalty and kudos keep me going!

“You _knew._ ” Rick’s words are icy and venomous as he stares Negan down. His hit was so relentlessly violent that his own hand aches fiercely from the impact. Not that it matters right now. His daughter is blind and so is Negan, and he’d _known_ that it was going to happen, and yet he’d chosen to keep his goddamned mouth quiet about it. So naturally, Rick’s pretty pissed and ready to unleash hell on this sorry son of a bitch.

He’d trusted Negan with everything - his kids, himself, the Alexandria floor, and just about everything else. He’d told his people that Negan was going to keep them safe. He’d learned to trust the man, himself. He’d given up _everything_ to come here, and ultimately, it had been at the cost of his daughter’s eyesight.

What comes next? Are people going to die? What the fuck is Rick supposed to do? This entire _planet_ is under Negan’s control, and Rick is furious.

Negan’s been knocked clear off his feet by Rick’s punch. Somewhere behind Rick, he can hear Carson screaming for him to stop, but he doesn’t. In a matter of seconds, he’s on Negan again, ripping him up by the front of his shirt and punching him straight out of his own grip all over again. The hit lands so hard that Rick’s wrist cracks and it draws blood from Negan’s skin. Negan reels sideways, hits the wall, and collapses to the ground. Rick can tell by how speechless he is that he knows he’s guilty, which only angers Rick further. Again, he’s got Negan by the front, wrenched up against the same wall he’d fallen into moments ago.

“C’mon, man!” The doctor screams behind Rick, grabbing him by the shoulder, but Rick merely shoves him away. This time, however, he doesn’t hit Negan. The man’s already bleeding from the first two hits, his eyes wide with fury and shock.

“You heard the man.” Negan snarls, spitting blood as he does so. “Let me fucking go, Rick.”

“Shut up.” Rick seethes back. “You shut your fuckin’ mouth, unless you’re gonna give me a goddamn explanation.”

Negan pushes Rick away, and Rick doesn’t fight it. His body feels numb and tingly with rage. He feels like he could bludgeon Negan into a pulp, but the desire for answers overpowers the violent urges. Is Judith going to be okay? Is anything else going to happen to her?

He suddenly wants to cry. A part of him wonders if he’d made the right call in choosing to leave Earth. It’s not safe here - not with how little they know. And now, Judith is paying the price for Rick’s hasty decision.

He remembers the earthquake. Though minor, it had terrified both Rick and the young Judith. Carl had called from his friend’s place, shaken up, and Rick had realized that maybe his home planet wasn’t safe anymore. Looking back, one earthquake didn’t mean much, but with the random broadcasts from NASA and Philip’s surprise appearance at the station, Rick had truly felt as if he’d had reason to be concerned. At the time, it had seemed like the right decision.

But here on Vona, there are torrential rainstorms, giant trees, and species that Negan’s trusty research team apparently knows next to nothing about. And now, seeing that milky blue-green-gray in Judith’s eyes, Rick is furious. Furious with himself, and furious with Negan. Furious with Philip, the man with the eyepatch back on Earth. With these people, who worked blindly under Negan without demanding answers. With everyone and everything surrounding the situation that took his little girl’s sight away.

Negan narrows his eyes. “You don’t get to tell me what to do, Rick. I’m the boss. Not you.”

“Like hell I don’t.” Rick snaps, teeth bared. “You took my daughter’s vision. I’m not about to let that slide.”

“I didn’t take _shit_.” Negan growls, and the fight starts all over again. Rick shoves the larger man back hard against the wall once more, making the items in the tall glass cabinet nearby rattle and clank together in protest. Rick brings a fist up to swing again, but Negan fights back this time. He catches the fist in his palm and twists Rick’s wrist--the one he cracked on Negan’s bloodied face moments ago--making him yowl in pain.

Rick is then forced back and kicked hard in the stomach. The hit is so powerful that it sends Rick reeling backward, and when his back hits another wall, he finds himself gagging and struggling to catch his breath all at the same time.

But that doesn’t stop Rick from retaliating yet again. The office they’re in is small, so it doesn’t take much for Rick to be on Negan all over again, a new flurry of punches aimed his way.

All hell breaks loose. Rick and Negan are slamming one another against walls and shattering glass in their path. Hands scramble on broken glass on the floor, and blood flies from sliced skin with each hit. It isn’t until the piercing scream of one Judith Grimes fills the room that both men stop in their tracks. They’re both bleeding profusely by now, but none of that matters with the way Judith is shrieking.

“Judy--!” Rick zooms to his daughter’s side, ignoring the incredulous look on Carson’s face. “Honey, I’m here--it’s Daddy. What’s wrong?”

The little girl cries harder. “Why are you guys fighting?”

Rick turns his focus over to Negan, seeing a man whose face is bleeding and hands are stained red from Rick’s own blood. The larger man is leaning against a counter, huffing and puffing and trying to catch his breath. He looks like a disaster, but he’s so fixed on Judith with a worried expression right now that Rick doesn’t know what to think.

So he doesn’t think at all. His focus shifts back to his daughter, who wipes tears from her eyes.

“I can see, Daddy! Negan didn’t take my sight away! I can see fine, so please stop being so mad!” She brushes away more tears. “I don’t see pictures anymore, but I can see. I promise…”

Rick leans in and throws his arms around the little girl’s shoulders, kissing her hair. “I’m sorry, Judy. We won’t fight anymore, okay?” He glances up at Negan for confirmation, and the other man nods. “I’m so sorry, sweetie. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“S’okay.” Judith whimpers, her voice muffled into her father’s chest. She wipes her eyes on Rick’s shirt, and then turns those milky eyes up to Rick’s. It’s difficult to discern whether she’s actually looking him in the eyes or doing her best to appear as if she’s doing so. Rick’s heart breaks. “...I wanna go home.”

Rick nods. “Okay, Judy. We will. Your brother’s worried sick about you, so let’s go.”

Negan joins him on this trip, despite his earlier brawl with Rick. Rick tries not to dwell on wondering why and instead keeps his focus on returning Judith to Carl. The teenager spends several moments asking for explanations, and Rick promises to tell him just as soon as he finds it all out for himself. Carl is reluctant, but swears he’ll watch his sister like a hawk from here on out and takes her upstairs for a nap.

Rick rounds on Negan the moment he has a chance. “You owe me an explanation.”

Apparently, all of this has finally had its toll on Negan, because he concedes to Rick’s request. With a shake of his head, he turns and motions for Rick to follow him back toward the elevator. “You can see for yourself.”

Rick doesn’t remember passing this floor on the way down to rescue Judith, and Negan makes a point to conceal which floor number they’re descending to as the elevator goes down. Either way, they emerge into a small corridor, where Negan enters a code Rick can’t see, and then they’re walking into a widespread room that is the very picture of something straight out of a sci-fi movie. It’s got the same high ceilings as the other floors, but it’s much more confined. The room looks darker, with tall gray computers and machines and containers blocking out the glass that would operate as walls. And just like in one of those bad movies, there are specimens in the containers.

Or, well, things Rick assumes to be specimens. At first glance, it doesn’t look like there’s anything but water inside, but there are tubes connected to something. It’s suspended in the water, but whatever it is, it has form. Invisible form.

Rick’s busy frowning and trying to see the unseen when Negan approaches him again.

“Over here.” He directs, and Rick pulls his gaze away from the containers to follow Negan toward a large, gray desk, where a computer sits, drowned out by scattered file folders. Negan extends a hand. “Be my fucking guest. Read to your little heart’s content. But once you leave this room, that’s it. That’s all you get, Rick.”

Rick doesn’t answer. Instead, he opens a folder on the top of the pile and starts thumbing through. There are pictures, handwritten notes, and typed ones. In the pictures, Rick sees the same greenery as outside the terrarium. There are brightly-colored flowers, water, sand, and something he recognizes as very similar to the thing that had given Judith back. The one in the picture is far different in shape, with its limbs bent around at strange, painful-looking angles, and its head is far more oblong and less human-looking than the one Rick had seen before. But it’s similar. Similar enough that Rick’s body is hot with fury once more upon making the connection.

He launches the paper at Negan with an angry flick of the wrist--one that makes his injured hand and arm twinge painfully. “What did that thing do to my daughter, Negan? To you?”

Rick sees Negan’s temples flare as his jaw clenches. “...Echolocation.”

“S’cuse me?” Rick frowns.

“It’s what we think they do. They’re scary-looking little fucks, but that’s all they’ve got going for them. So far, they’re harmless.”

“ _Seriously?_ ” Negan did _not_ just say that. Rick can’t believe his ears. “These harmless _fucks_ took Judy’s eyesight.”

“It comes with its perks.” Negan’s voice is calm, despite Rick’s irritation. This only serves to upset Rick further, but this time, his fury is silent as he waits for Negan to explain himself.

Which he does.

“That thing didn’t just make your little girl blind.” He starts. “It replaced her sight with...whatever the fuck it has. She sees, but not like she used to. For me, it’s in all my other senses. My left I can’t see, but I can sense things in the environment by smell and sound, and vibrations paint a picture in my mind. I know your girl was outside of the terrarium because I couldn’t feel her signature anywhere inside.”

Rick turns, backs up, and leans against the cluttered desk nearby. He shakes his head. “Judith lost vision in both her eyes. Why not you?”

Negan shrugs. “Much as I’d love to answer that question for you, I don’t know. To be honest, that thing was cradling her. Its signature was all the fuck over her. Wouldn’t be surprised if she’s got more than blindness going on now.”

Negan is being vague, but Rick can mostly put the pieces together. He remembers how Negan and Eugene had warned them not to touch the creatures. So whatever happens...it’s through touch?

“How did it just get your eye?” Rick moves in close. He doesn’t care how much of the distance closes between himself or Negan, neither does he notice whether Negan minds or not.

“It just...fucking did.” Negan tries. Rick can tell he’s getting a little miffed by the questions. Doesn’t matter, though. Rick is owed every detail he cares to ask for. “I don’t know if their...what-the-fuck-evers actually count as hands, but it must’ve been curious, because it poked me right in the eye.” His expression darkens, enlightening Rick to the realization that the next part might be hard for Negan to say.

But he says it anyway. Rick wants to think it’s for Judith, since he seems to really value her life, but he won’t get his hopes up. Not after today.

Never again.

“I saw something in that eye the minute it touched me.” Negan continues. “When it touched my eye, I could see energy and force and atoms and molecules. I could feel smells and taste visions. Reality blurred and I felt sick to my stomach. I passed out, and then woke up blind as fuck in this eye. To this day, being around those things makes me sick to my stomach because of how overwhelming their signatures are to me.”

Rick can picture that. Negan had ripped his helmet off and vomited right as that thing had shown up with Judith. He’d been useless, but in a way, he had alerted Rick to its presence--to his daughter’s arrival. It had been uncomfortable for Negan, but important to Judith’s welfare that it had happened.

Rick’s anger subsides. “Have you seen it get someone like the way it got Judy?” Poor Judith is asleep in Carl’s room, utterly unaware of what her future holds. Rick is determined to learn anything he can to help her.

But when Negan shakes his head, Rick can’t mask the disappointment he feels.

“These fuckers don’t exactly make a goddamn point to get in everyone’s faces.” Negan crosses his arms and locks eyes with Rick. “They avoid most of us, but hone in on certain ones. It’s not impossible to blame curiosity, because they’ve never tried to hurt any of us.”

Rick thinks of all the alien stories he’d seen on TV before his move to Vona. About stories of people being abducted in the middle of the night and then mysteriously returned with odd retellings of what happened or permanent mental and physical illnesses. Of people seeing bright lights that last all of a few seconds, and then those lights giving way to a reality that is somehow four hours later into the future.

Are these things just curious? Trying to learn about the new beings inhabiting their planet? Or is there something else? Rick hates not knowing, and it irks him how strongly every closed door gives way to two new open ones. He’s reminded that they know jack _shit_ about anything here.

“Here’s the thing, Rick.” Negan continues, pulling Rick from his thoughts. “That bracelet I had you wear? These things don’t like certain vibrations--probably messes with their signal or some shit. The whole terrarium gives off that field, but if they felt it was necessary, they could get in, no fucking problem. Make contact with someone. I believe they’ve had their sights on your kiddo for a long goddamn time. Maybe since you guys got here.”

Rick swallows anxiety back down into his chest and glares at the gray stone floor beneath him.

“Your daughter has no clue what they are, Rick.” Negan explains. “But she can communicate with them. She could _before_ the blindness. It’s totally possible she was convinced by them to leave today. They saw something important in her. She fucking saw it in _me_. Looked me right through my blind eye the day I visited her on our first inspection. She hit the windows, went into trances, and I dunno if you noticed, but she’s _damn_ perceptive.”

Rick’s stomach drops. He remembers the dreams, of his own blindness and his trek through his home and the Alexandria floor. Those things groping at the glass around him. He makes the grim realization that Negan is right--that Judith very well could have been talking with this planet’s original inhabitants the entire time. All this time, and he’d never noticed. He’d just thought it was all a behavior.

“You knew this?” Rick asks, voice weak and guilty. “Saw her doin’ these things and didn’t tell me? Negan, we could have stopped her goin’ blind if I’d have known somethin’...”

“We couldn’t have stopped a fucking thing.” He thumbs behind himself, motioning to the large glass container Rick had been eyeing before. “They can go invisible. If they had wanted to harm her, they’d have done it. My guess is, she’s an experiment. She’s more sensitive to neurological things than most of us. She’s a livewire to them. They want to know about her, so they can know about us.”

Rick wonders if the three-year spaceship trip had contributed to that fact any, but shrugs it off. Judith hadn’t been too cooped up--just in a much smaller community. A smaller community she now calls home here on Vona.

But now, Rick is at a loss. If they like Judith so much, won’t they come back again? What then?

In desperation to figure _something_ out, Rick turns a pitiful, distraught stare up to Negan. “What do I do?”

The apologetic look on Negan’s face brings Rick no relief. “I wish I knew. Try talking to her, and let her know it’s not safe out there. Keep an eye on her. I’ll tighten security on your floor. We’ll...figure this out, Rick.”

Rick is sure Negan felt guilty before, but it seems stronger now. Now that all the tension has left the room and things are less violent. Now that Rick has calmed down and decided to hear Negan out. Now, he just looks like he wishes he could help.

“Why’d you keep all this a secret?” Rick proceeds to ask. “It seems to me like this is awful important information that’s relevant to all of us.”

Negan sighs. “Because we don’t know enough. Didn’t want your people losing their fucking shit over theories.” He shrugs. “Just look at yourself. You’re pale and you look like someone just killed your mom. And I can’t give you one goddamn suggestion of reassurance.”

Negan is right. He’s right, and Rick knows it, and he can still do nothing about it. He’s stuck, and he wants to punch something again, but the throbbing in his right wrist tells him that’s probably not such a good idea.

“That’s why I need you to keep this to yourself.” Negan adds. “Right now, we’re looking at a whole fucklot of dangerous possibilities and zero solutions, and if everyone in this terrarium starts losing their collective minds, we’re gonna stop operating properly. I can’t lose functionality of this place.”

Rick notices a bitterness in Negan’s words--something he can’t put any logic behind solely based upon what he knows now. It makes his chest ache, though, and Rick finds he _wants_ to know. Being furious with Negan aside, he longs to know this man--see what kind of guy he is. What has led to him being where he is right now, on this planet.

“I won’t say anything.” Rick concedes. “But I won’t be happy about it. I hope to God you’re makin’ ground on a breakthrough. My _daughter_ is at stake.”

Negan’s shoulders sink. “Fucking trust me, Rick. I know.”

\-------------------

Rick spends another hour going through files. Notes on echolocation, the possible genetic makeup of the creatures, and their negative responses to certain types of energy--this pile of notes goes over it all. But even with all this scientific analysis, there isn’t so much as one shred of proof that Judith’s condition is reversible, let alone _what_ that cure could be.

At the very least, the species being studied doesn’t seem to be predatory. Rick doesn’t feel any safer, but he does at least feel a little less afraid. He wonders how Judith is doing, and that’s when he closes up his search. Sure, he remembers Negan’s warning about this being his last visit to this room, but with Negan’s reasoning behind keeping all this a secret, he finds catharsis in the hope that the man will come clean once he learns enough to do so.

As he and Negan clamber into the elevator once more, Rick wonders who all is involved in research. Eugene probably, as he seems to know the most about the creatures and their makeup. But who else? Surely, Negan has more…

“Jesus _shit_ , Rick.” Negan sounds alarmed, which draws Rick’s focus up to him rather quickly. “Look at your fucking hand.”

Rick obeys, and his stomach twists. He must’ve either hit Negan harder than he’d thought or hit him with the wrong part of his fist. Adrenaline must still be pulsing through him or something, because the pain is dull at worst, but it looks like hell. All the way from his forearm down, he’s bruised, knuckles and fingers and wrist swollen and purpling and throbbing. It aches more when he looks at it. A _lot_ more.

As the elevator ascends, Negan crosses his arms. Rick notices that the once-bleeding spot on the other man’s face is now covered in dried blood, with a wide-open split right on the cheek bone. That must’ve been the one that damaged Rick’s wrist. Negan doesn’t seem to pay the injury any mind, though. His focus is entirely on Rick.

“Go get that looked at. _Please_.” Negan begs. “It looks like you should be fucking doubled over right now.”

“I’m startin’ to feel it.” Rick admits with some amusement. “Now that I’m comin’ down from all this excitement.”

“Fuck, it looks broken.” Negan winces. “I’ll send Denise to your place.”

\----------------

“You’re insane.” Denise informs Rick as she secures a cast around his right hand and wrist. “Eugene told me this is because you decked Negan. Why he didn’t beat you to a pulp for it’s beyond me.” She’s already told Rick his wrist is indeed broken, and that on another planet with a still-growing medical department is probably not a good place to do so.

Rick shrugs. “My daughter is suddenly blind, and so is he. Did you know that?”

Denise hesitates, giving Rick his answer. He sighs in disappointment. “You know what’s been goin’ on with her all this time.”

“I told you all I know.” Denise replies, hands up and waving like a white flag. “Which isn’t much. Negan keeps his distance about it. Doesn’t like talking about it because of his own memory of what caused it.”

Rick frowns. “He told me he got stabbed in the eye by one of those creatures’ finger-things.”

Denise sighs. “Look, I’ve never seen ‘those creatures’. I just know that something happened to him that apparently connects to the phenomenon your daughter’s experiencing.” After finishing her work on Rick’s hand, she gets to the task of cleaning the blood from his face. “I’ve only seen it in a few others, but Negan and your daughter are the only ones I’ve seen go blind. They’re also the only ones going through all this who have been outside. That’s all I have for you. Which you already knew.”

Rick shakes his head. He feels defeated and at a loss. He knows why, too. If given the chance, he’d fix Judith right back to normal with a snap of the fingers or a careful placement of a bandage. But this isn’t your run-of-the-mill boo-boo. This is permanent.

“I’m just a doctor, Rick.” Denise says apologetically. “I can be here to help her learn to cope with her blindness, but I can’t get rid of it. And like it or not, I answer to Negan, so I can’t find out any more than what you can. I’m sorry.”

She leaves, and in her absence lingers a heaviness. Rick’s hand throbs relentlessly. His shoulders slump. A broken sigh escapes him.

He sits back and weeps.

“...Daddy?” Not more than fifteen seconds pass before Judith pops up at the foot of the stairs. Rick looks up from his watery vision and takes the time to be amazed. Judith has somehow managed to get downstairs that quickly, despite the fact that she’d only recently lost her eyesight.

Yeah, he recalls what has been said to him over the course of the past several hours. How could he forget? Judith’s desperate squeal that she could see fine, even as she wasn’t making eye contact, and Negan’s weird description of what ‘seeing’ in that left eye was like for him...they’re all Rick can think about. Is his daughter really navigating by echolocation?

The scary part is that Rick can see it. He thinks about his dream, and how the eyesight he’d been given had been noticeably different than what his normal perception was like. And with Judith’s weird pattern of smacking the terrarium windows and dropping into trance-like states, combined with recollections of Rick and Negan searching for Judith and Negan’s own momentary stupors, it doesn’t seem even the slightest bit impossible.

And if echolocation is reacting to the sounds in the environment for navigation purposes, the banging Judith had done on those windows...had she been communicating with those things? Had she unknowingly let them in here, and then followed them out?

By the time Rick’s got his thoughts put together, Judith has crossed the living room and moved to stand before her father. Blindness does virtually nothing to obscure the expression of concern in her big eyes. They still look as wide and perceptive as ever.

“You’re crying…” Judith observes as she climbs onto the couch and leans against Rick’s side. “Daddy, are you mad at me for going outside?”

No, of course Rick isn’t mad at her. He could never be. He knows full well that her intent had never been to get into trouble or to wind up blinded, but he still wonders what exactly compelled her to do such a thing. He can make inferences all he wants, but he’s no mind reader.

Despite these thoughts, Rick curls an arm around his daughter’s shoulders and pulls her in close. “No, sweetie. I’m not mad at you. I’m just glad you’re alright. Why’d you do it, though?”

Judith pauses, ‘hmm’s to herself, and then shrugs. “I don’t know, Daddy. I just had to. The sounds told me to.”

“...Sounds?” Rick swallows.

“Yeah.” Judith answers, like it’s nothing. “You don’t see them, but me and Negan do. Daryl, too.”

Rick freezes. Daryl, too? It frightens him how much sense that makes. Back when Daryl rushed Judith to his house and splashed her with water, and how calm he was about the whole thing. Daryl has always been a bit of a quiet, closed-off type of guy, so Rick didn’t do much dwelling on it at the time, but now that he thinks about it, it wouldn’t be completely unfounded for him to possess the same qualities that Judith had started displaying not long after arrival on Vona.

“...How do you know?” Rick questions. He’s a little impressed that he’s seeking advice from his daughter, but at the same time, not surprised. Judith possesses a wisdom beyond her years--a wisdom Rick had noticed as she grew older on the trip here.

Judith beams one of her big, childlike smiles. “I can see it! If you look at his eyes, you can see that he feels the sounds like me.”

Rick frowns. “But he’s not blind like you or Negan…”

“That’s okay.” Judith shakes her head. “That only happens when they touch you.” She looks down at the palm of her left hand, while her right reaches up and traces along the vein crossing her wrist out to her forearm. “Before I went outside, I could hear them too. These things,” Rick assumes she’s referring to her veins, “are so loud, and they sound different from everyone. Yours are quieter than mine or Daryl’s or Negan’s. That’s how I can tell.”

This is all so much information that Rick’s feeling a bit overwhelmed by it. Judith is as placid as ever about it, but Rick imagines that if she’s been in possession of this extra ‘sight’ for so long, she’s had plenty of time to think about what it all means. So strange, for a six-year-old to already be aware of so much.

Negan was definitely right--whatever these things were, they’d sought out Judith because of her increased perception of the world around her. Was she like this before she could sense it? Before they left Earth? Rick supposes there are a lot of questions that he’ll never have answered.

Either way, he turns, grabs Judith by the shoulders, and looks her directly in the eyes. Her own gaze meets his, just as milky and gray as ever.

“Thank you, Judy,” he starts, his expression serious, “but I need you to listen to me now, okay?”

She nods. Clearly, her father is still her boss, no matter what happened today. Rick takes some comfort in the fact that she doesn’t view this planet’s inhabitants as any more wise than Rick, himself. That’ll make him doing as Negan instructed easier.

“Good.” Rick smiles softly. “Now, I know you think these guys are nice, and maybe they are, but we don’t know what else is out there. We’re still learnin’ about this place. So I need you to stay inside until we can figure it out. Can you do that for me?”

He sees the reluctance in his daughter’s face, but when she smiles back up at him, he breathes a sigh of relief. “Yeah, okay. I understand, Daddy. I’ll stay inside.”

“Even when they tell you to go out?” Rick presses.

“Yeah.” Judith’s grin never fades. “I promise.”

Rick sweeps her into a big hug, and when he pulls away, he brushes some of her bangs out of her face. “Good. Negan’s gonna keep some men at the doors just in case someone else tries to go out, so stay away from the elevator, okay?”

Judith nods again. “Okay.”

Rick ruffles his daughter’s hair. “Alright. Now, you go and play with your brother. I’ve got work to do.”

\---------------------

As promised, Negan keeps guards at the elevator. When Rick re-emerges with a cast on his hand and enough pain meds in his system to dull the ache, he sees two of them standing at either side of the door, expressions bland and serious. He decides not to pay them any mind and instead focuses on his rounds.

It’s been a little bit since he last saw how Alexandria was doing. He’s been so occupied with what Negan did to David and everything that followed the event that he’s been slacking on his actual duties somewhat. He doesn’t regret having a few drinks and enjoying their new bar during that time, though, and nor does he regret going outside and being stuck out there overnight. He knows the others probably understand, but he still feels he owes them an apology.

So that’s exactly what he does. He goes about the area, helping out where he can, and casts apologies to everyone who has been working in his stead. Michonne, Carl, Glenn, Daryl, Carol, and everyone else he runs by. He’s met with a warm response, and ample questions about how the outside world is, but he keeps his answers to himself. Negan had requested it after all. The more stubborn people--the ones who refuse to take ‘nothin’ interesting’ for an answer--get ‘I’m not talkin’ about it’ instead. The response to that is always a little harder to deal with, and Rick is sure he’s earned a few harsh rumors as a result, but that’s the way it is.

He owes Negan for helping him find Judith, and whether he likes it or not, that man is the one in charge of his and his family’s welfare, so he has to do what he’s told. Whether he likes it or not, and whether he trusts Negan or not.

Rick isn’t sure he trusts Negan at this point. He feels compelled to believe that the other man has his and his people’s best interest at heart, but he also has no clue just how much Negan is still keeping from him. He just can’t bring himself to feel safe without everything out in the open.

What does he do next? Rick is still working to figure that out.

Rounds go smoothly, but at the end of Rick’s patrol, he finds himself face-to-face with Simon once more. The mustachioed man is grinning widely at him, as he directs him past the guards at the elevator and inside. He pushes the button for the Sanctuary floor.

Rick hasn’t spent much time around Simon, but he knows the man is nearly as charismatic and offensive as Negan. He doesn’t care to spend too much time engaged in conversation with him, but this weird silent treatment he’s being given is making him a little uncomfortable. Simon hadn’t even spoken as he’d waved for Rick to follow him, after all.

“Negan couldn’t come get me himself?” Rick questions, trying not to look suspicious. He supposes the last time he spoke to Negan, it’d included him socking the other man on the face, but still. He’s entitled to an answer.

“I’m sure he would,” Simon responds in earnest, despite his earlier silence, “if it was he who sent for you. Negan’s busy with getting shit regarding your kiddo’s great escape back in order. This guy specifically requested to see you. He actually asked to see you the minute you got here, but he’s on the exploration team, so he just now got the chance.”

Rick frowns, and Simon sees it. He shrugs.

“The guy’s not quite as high up on the totem pole as Negan is, but it’s still damn important you see him.” Simon shrugs.

Rick doesn’t ask anymore. He spends the rest of their trek in contemplative silence. Who else could want to see him so badly that he’d asked for him ages ago? What the hell could the guy want with him? Rick’s a busy man, and yeah, he’s doing good things, but there’s no way he’s earned himself a reputation this good after such a short time...right?

Rick’s led onto the Sanctuary floor, but they don’t stay there. At least, not in what Rick assumes to be the main area. They veer off to the left, toward a towering structure that looks to be as tall as the glass ceiling itself. It looks like a large metal warehouse, and it spans the entirety of its side of the floor. The door slides open for Simon and Rick, and then it’s up a flight of stairs and into a hallway.

The area reminds Rick of the police station back home. It’s an open hallway, with dividers that look more like cubicles than walls. There are names on all the doors, and when they stop at one that’s labeled _Walsh_ , Rick’s blood runs cold.

It feels like pure ice by the time Simon opens the door. There he is--Rick’s former best friend and work partner, Shane Walsh, in all his glory. He’s smiling as if nothing is happening, and the ice in Rick’s veins suddenly melts and shifts to fire.

Simon catches the spark between them and smiles even more widely than he already has been. “I guess I don’t need to worry about introductions, but Rick, meet the guy who referred you to Project Vona.”

Rick dives forward and throws his arms around his best friend’s shoulders. He’s relieved when Shane responds in kind.


	9. In Which Reunions Are Had

This is the first time Rick’s heard any explicitly good news in a long while. Of all the people Rick had expected to run into here, Shane Walsh had not been one of them. And to add icing to the cake, Shane had been the one who had recommended Rick and his family to the Vona Project?

He thinks back to everything that had happened with Shane leading up to then. Himself and the other man being partners on the force and best friends since their school days. Shane operating as an uncle to Carl. Him suddenly disappearing two years before Judith’s birth. Philip stopping by the station one day to tell Rick that someone had suggested he and his family evacuate the planet…

Had Shane disappeared to come here? Why hadn’t he told Rick anything? And when Rick thinks about all of this at once and does the math, he realizes it’s been five years since he last saw this man. Five years of no best friend, no support from said best friend following Lori’s passing, and no one to help him tell Carl it was going to be alright.

Shane doesn’t look too different. He’s got that same gruff expression on his face and the same sharp eyes. His posture is just as just as rigid as ever, even with the delighted grin on his face. Oddly enough, the grin falls off his features right as Rick starts thinking about it. It’s almost like Shane read his mind.

“I heard about Lori, Rick.” He says, his tone dropping a few octaves. “Man, I’m so sorry. How’ve you two been holdin’ up? The new baby?”

Rick wants to ask how Shane could possibly find out from the middle of outer space about Lori’s death, but he doesn’t bother. Besides, plenty of people on the Alexandria floor know already. Word’s probably traveled up to the Sanctuary floor and been circulating around. Even out...exploring or whatever Simon said he was doing…Rick wouldn’t be surprised if Shane had just gotten word about it. Either way, he looks genuinely upset, and all of Rick’s anger about his disappearance gives in to a softer feeling…one Rick can’t find a word to describe. It’s just there, and it’s holding him back from lashing out.

“We’re fine.” Rick answers, and as Shane pats a seat not far from the desk at which he’s sitting, he continues. “Carl’s so strong, Shane. You’d be so proud of him.”

“I already am.” Shane responds. “I heard his sister went missin’ recently. I heard he was worried sick.”

“Yeah, he was.” Rick nods. “I was on this floor with Negan when it happened. Carl came lookin’ for me to let me know Judy had disappeared, and he was real distraught when he learned he didn’t get to go out with Negan and I to search for her.”

“I don’t doubt it.” Shane laughs. “Kid’s always been a little spitfire. Losin’ his sister outside of the terrarium had to be a scary thought for him. Knowin’ him, he was bein’ stupid and reckless like you, thinkin’ about how shitty a situation that little girl was in, and how he had to get out there as quickly as possible and bring her back…”

“Yeah.” Rick sighs. “But she’s back, now.”

Shane clearly already knows this, so he doesn’t say anything. Rick, who has yet to take a seat in the chair he’s been offered, nods back to the door. “You got time to go see them?”

He doesn’t remember his friend’s smile ever being as bright as it is now. “…I got all the time in the world right now, brother.”

The two men start out of the building, and the instant they reach the elevator and the door slides shut, Rick turns his focus to Shane.

“So, the Vona Project.” He observes aloud. “You’ve known about it a while.”

“I have.” Shane answers gruffly. Rick finds he’s missed the way his friend rests his hands on his belt buckle and stands like a soldier. He notices a dark, almost black bruise protruding from the short sleeve of his T-shirt, stopping just a few inches above the elbow at a point, but doesn’t ask about it.

“How long?” Rick continues. “Is this why you left all those years ago?”

Shane doesn’t look like he feels guilty, but Rick’s been friends with him long enough that he can tell by the expression on the other man’s face that he hadn’t wanted to go off and disappear like that. Not like Rick had ever thought he’d wanted to, but still. It’s reassuring to see that look—to feel like Rick and his family weren’t the only ones affected.

“Yeah.” Shane finally answers. He’s got his gaze focused on the lights on the elevator, even though they haven’t pushed a button to start moving yet. As he eventually does so, Shane turns his attention back to Rick. “I’d been talkin’ to Philip…you met him, right?”

“Yeah.” Rick answers. “Eyepatch. Met me at the station, told me someone had recommended me to the Vona Project.”

“That’s the one.” Shane nods. “Anyway, I’d been talkin’ to him for a couple years before I decided to go. I’m sure he spouted the same shit to you that he was spoutin’ to me. I didn’t believe it at first. Sounded like a bunch of hokey pokey. All I kept thinkin’ was that you have to go to school for years to get involved with this kinda thing. Some magical guy with an eyepatch doesn’t just sweep you off your feet and go ‘hey, let’s go to outer space!’, y’know?”

“I do.” Rick chuckles breathily. “That’s exactly how I felt. He kept sayin’ the world was gonna end. Dunno if it actually did, but there was this big earthquake the night after he told me. There’d been a lot of ‘em happenin’ over the past year or so. I started to wonder if the Earth really wasn’t about to cave in on itself…”

“It’s scary, huh?” Shane’s expression is soft, a rare gesture from him.

“Yeah.” Rick sighs. “I hope I made the right call.”

“You did.” Shane’s voice is set in that stern, self-assured tone that Rick knows so well. “That planet…man, I can’t say I’ve seen it myself, but it’s gotta be long gone by now. All I could think about when I sent out that message to Philip, to talk him into bringin’ you and your wife and your boy along… _all_ I could think was that Carl deserved a chance. _Lori_ deserved one.”

A harsh ‘Lori’s dead’ hangs strong on Rick’s tongue, but he bites it back and swallows it bitterly down his throat. He really is so very happy to have Shane back, and the last thing they need right now is a fight. History can tell that they both have a penchant for getting into fights easily.

He also doesn’t have the heart to put Shane through a guilt trip this early into their reunion. Carl hasn’t even got to see the guy yet—doesn’t even know he’s alive. The serious conversation can at least wait until after that.

“Yeah.” Rick scrubs at the back of his neck. “You’re gonna love Judy, Shane.”

“She anything like her brother?” Shane offers Rick a playful smile.

“Not at all.” Rick laughs. “He’s dense like you are. She sees everything. When we were on the ship, man…you’d think the girl was psychic. She always knew how Carl and I were feelin’, and she always knew the right thing to make it better.” He bites his lip. “She lost her eyesight recently, though.”

“I know.” Shane admits. “Negan told me about it. He looks like hell, by the way.” When Rick looks up at his friend, he sees that Shane is smiling. “You really did a number on him. I’m surprised he didn’t beat the hell out of you for hittin’ him like that.”

“Yeah, well,” Rick retorts, “he kept important information from me. Did you know he’s blind in one eye, too?”

When Shane’s gaze drops to the floor, Rick has his answer. Why does everyone answer like that? And why do so many more people know than what Negan had let on? Rick knows better than to trust him to be totally honest anymore, but the more people he talks to, the more it seems like he’s being left out of the loop. The leader of an entire floor of people, father of someone who fell victim to whatever’s going on outside of this terrarium, and someone Negan has apparently taken a liking to, is having things hidden from him.

Rick will _never_ take kindly to being lied to, especially when his kids are on the line.

“I thought so.” Rick can’t contain the bitterness in his tone, and looking at Shane, he can tell the guy’s a little wounded by the harshness of the words.

“Rick.” Shane sounds defeated. He doesn’t move as the elevator reaches its destination and the doors swing open. Soon enough, they close right back up, leaving the two men to their private moment again. “Negan’s told me how pissed you are. He thinks you have every right to be.”

“I do.” Rick’s tone hasn’t changed.

Shane ignores the comment this time. “But you also need to know that none of us kept any of this from you to upset you. How do you think things would go if we went parading around, tellin’ everyone that Negan got his signature messed up by the things livin’ outside? You think we’d all be calm? You think this place would be anything remotely like a society?”

“I think people have a right to be informed.” Rick answers simply.

“Then you’re damn stupid, Rick.” Shane’s glaring at him now. “That’s all Negan wants—for this place to work as smoothly as it can. And leader of your floor or not, you’re still a total stranger to those of us who’ve been here for a while. I can vouch for your trustworthiness all I want, but in the end, it’s Negan’s call. His eye makes him a good judge of character, so you should be thankful for what he’s given you so far.”

“Thankful.” Rick sighs. “Are you shittin’ me, Shane? Maybe if he’d have told me about Judy’s condition, I could’ve saved her. Maybe if he’d told me why he was blind, I’d have known what to watch for.”

“Man, shut up.” Shane advances on Rick, a tactic he remembers from the old days. Shane would get into his face, say his big words, and if the two didn’t fight it out physically, they would verbally. “Look, you got a right to be angry about your daughter’s sight. But you ain’t in charge of a whole goddamn planet. Negan ain’t right for keepin’ shit from you, Rick, but don’t go crossin’ your arms and actin’ like some big fuckin’ baby over it. Take the information you got from him and use it for the future. He ain’t dead because of what happened to him, and neither is your little girl.”

And like that, he moves toward the elevator door. It swings open, and he storms out. Rick, clearly still irritated, swallows his irritation and takes the lead. He sees Carl sitting with Judith on the makeshift stage in the middle of the floor. She’s running circles around him, giggling and laughing and smiling, and it honestly doesn’t look like she’s the least bit blind with the way she navigates.

Rick remembers what she told him. Of course he does. But it’s still so hard to process that she can’t see pictures right now. What she calls ‘seeing’ is actually something else entirely. The way Negan had explained it a while back, the things outside the walls had given her their sight. She hears and feels things, and they paint a picture for her in her mind. It’s so strange to Rick that she can use this new ability so effortlessly, so early into her condition.

He’s pulled from his thoughts when Carl takes notice of Shane. Rick sees his son’s eyes get wide, and that childlike glint return to his expression. Rick swears he sees emotion well up on his son’s face, before the boy pushes himself to his feet and starts sprinting for Shane. He’s much older than the last time he’d seen the man who had been all but his uncle, but he still runs for the guy like he’s that little boy all over again. He still throws his arms around Shane and clings to him like he would have at a younger age, and Shane still practically hefts him up off the ground to hug him back. When Rick hears his son sob, he feels his own heart crack a little.

It’s reassuring in a way to see him react like this. It makes him feel less like the only one who had been left missing something when Shane had gone away, and less immature about being so bitter about his disappearance.

When Shane puts Carl back on his feet, he cups his nephew’s face in his hands and smiles through a face that’s riddled with its own form of emotion. Rick hasn’t seen Shane cry but once or twice since the two have known each other, but moments like this are usually the ones that make it happen. He isn’t weeping yet, but his voice does crack a little.

“You’ve grown up so much, Carl.” Shane praises in a raspy voice. “I’m so proud of you.”

“Shut up.” Carl sobs, smiling through wet eyes and tear-streaked cheeks. “You don’t get to say that, stupid. You’ve been gone too long. And while you were gone, Mom…!”

“I know, buddy.” Shane shakes his head and then pulls Carl back in close, and they’re hugging again. Rick doesn’t have the heart to try and break it up. This kind of reunion seems like just the one they all need. Carl, all young and naïve like he is, is asking all the important questions, and Shane can’t get defensive with him like he does Rick. He never has been able to. “It’s okay, I know. I’m so sorry.”

Rick feels small fingers close around his own, and when he looks down, he sees his daughter. She’s staring at the spectacle too, her eyes fixed on Shane.

“Who is he, Daddy?” Judith asks. “He looks like Negan, but he’s not Negan.”

There’s a split second where Rick wonders how in the hell his daughter can see Negan in this guy’s face, but then he remembers that the way Judith is seeing things is totally different from how he and Carl and Shane do. She’s not seeing a face and hair and eyes. She’s seeing an energy, or a vibration…as Negan keeps putting it, a _signature_.

Rick can kind of infer what that means. It’s someone’s imprint—the energy they give off. And they must all be unique, because when Judith had gone missing, Negan had actually been trying to find her by seeking out her signature.

He wonders what her signature is like. Is it gentle and kind? Soft? Welcoming? He bets you can feel warm colors like orange and pink and soft brown around you when you sense her signature. So inviting and kind and reassuring. Judith has that power about herself, and Rick doesn’t have to have whatever echolocation senses these aliens do to know that.

“His name is Shane, Judy.” Rick answers. “He’s your uncle. He had to go far away before you were born, but Carl grew up with him and loves him very much.”

Judith smiles. “I can tell. He looks very shaky and excited.”

Shane and Carl pull away again. Carl wipes away tears, and Shane turns to face Judith. She doesn’t let go of her father’s hands. Her big eyes, despite not seeing, are taking in everything about him. She cocks her head to the side, and the room grows tense. Shane is just gawking back at her, standing a few feet away. Neither of them seem to know what to say. But finally, after several long moments, Shane finally chokes out some kind of greeting.

“You look so much like your momma.”

Judith just stares at him. “I never met her. Was she pretty?”

“So pretty.” Shane replies, stepping forward. He drops to his knees in front of her, and Rick sees a twinge of guilt in his expression when he lays eyes on her own, finally able to see what happened to her. “I dunno where you got all this blonde hair at, though. Lori was a brunette.”

“What’s a brunette?” Judith asks him, and he laughs. It’s a breathy, emotional laugh. Rick can tell he wants nothing more than to give her a big hug.

“Someone with brown hair, honey.” He answers.

Rick smiles down at them, but then something catches his eye. He turns his attention toward the elevators just in time to see them come open, and for Negan to emerge from them. He’s by himself.

For some reason, Rick’s stomach twists. He wants to blame it on anger for all that happened, but there almost seems to be a pang of remorse. Negan looks like hell. His face has faded green and purple marks from where Rick had hit him before, and it doesn’t look any less painful than it had before.

It doesn’t help that Negan’s own expression softens a bit when he sees the cast on Rick’s wrist. In fact, seeing him look at him like that aches more than it should, and Rick realizes that after all this time spent with this guy, he’s legitimately getting attached to him. Liar or not, Negan has grown on Rick.

He releases his daughter’s hand and steps away from the group. Carl meets his eyes for a second, but when Rick nods toward Negan, he seems to understand.

“…Hey.” Rick greets from about thirty feet away from Shane and his kids. Negan’s smile is as soft as the rest of him right now.

“Hey there, Right Hook.” Negan responds. His teeth flash in the smile he offers up, and Rick feels warm all over.

“That my new name?” Rick dares to question. It’s strange, how pleasant the energy between them right now is, but he likes it. All the tension from their fight seems to have dwindled, and Rick actually feels comfortable around him. Despite everything he and Shane had argued about in the elevator, any negative feelings he has toward Negan have gone by the wayside. He doesn’t necessarily think it’s because of his friend’s words, so much as the way Negan is talking to him right now.

Maybe Negan actually does feel pretty shitty about how things had gone down. Rick wonders if there’s a part of him who had wished he could’ve been honest from the get-go.

“That’s what you’re getting until these fucking bruises go away.” Negan observes. Somehow, he manages a smirk among all of it, and Rick gets that warm feeling all over again.

“I’m sorry.” He blurts out before he can stop himself. He’s left gawking up at Negan, who his staring placidly back down at him. Quickly, he clears his throat and tries to find the words to explain himself. “I shouldn’t have hit you. It’s just…it happened to my daughter of all people, y’know?”

Negan softens all over again. “I know, Rick. I’m sorry. Look, uh…let’s go for a walk. It’s inspection time, anyway.”

Rick nods and directs Negan toward the crops. Some of them are now flourishing brilliantly. Negan oohs and ahhs over them for a few paces, but soon enough, he makes it pretty clear that he doesn’t see any negative changes in the operation of the Alexandria floor, and his focus returns to Rick. He clears his throat and looks straight ahead.

“I should’ve told you about my eye.” He says. “Your daughter knew. And I knew she knew, and I was also aware that something was fucking up with the way she was acting. I didn’t want you flipping shit if I told you, though…which was kind of a mistake.”

“No…” Rick shakes his head. “I was mad about it before…still kind of am…but I get it. You’re in charge of a lot here. It’s not fair for me to assume you didn’t have some sort of good reason for keepin’ it to yourself.”

Negan glances sideways at him. “Well, for what it’s worth, I’d have socked the shit out of some asshole if he’d have done the same thing to me. You did what any good dad would do, Rick. I like that about you.”

Rick isn’t quite sure what to say. He’s not sure if a ‘thank you’ is what Negan’s expecting or something else. Or hell, maybe he’s not expecting anything. Either way, he fumbles around his words like he’s afraid of them for a few seconds, and Negan apparently decides to seize the opportunity to keep talking.

“By the way, I didn’t realize you and that guy went back.” Negan thumbs behind himself, in the direction they’d just come from. Rick knows he’s talking about Shane. “Knew he’d had a buddy back from the days on the force, but didn’t realize you were that one.”

“You and Shane talk to each other a lot?” Rick wonders aloud.

“Yep.” Negan grins. “He’s my go-to guy for exploration, so when he isn’t out roughing it, we do a lot of planning together. And let me tell you, Rick, he’s damn fucking good at what he does.”

“I don’t doubt it.” Rick shrugs. “When he gets his heart set on somethin’, that’s it. He’s in it.”

“I can agree with that.” Negan responds.

Their walk falls silent there. They prowl along the crops and then start toward the buildings. Everything seems to be in order, but Rick remembers he hasn’t gotten to show Negan the progress the bar has made, so he decides to make that their last stop.

They enter an empty building. There are tables and chairs everywhere, and a stage built for performances. It isn’t like they can do much without instruments yet, but it’s a start. A start Rick happens to be pretty proud of.

Negan whistles. “I like what you’ve done with the place.” He says. “Starting to wear that fucking statement out on you, huh?”

“Maybe.” Rick grins, a little sheepishly. “But it’s good to hear, too. If I had a tail, it’d be waggin’.”

Negan just laughs, and they keep exploring. Rick shows him the upstairs, which is designed for the kids. There are a few extra beds, as well as some playthings Carl and Glenn have crafted from wood. Rick admires his son’s work—he’s so meticulous with his little animal statues and soldiers. If they were back on earth, Carl could make a financial living on it.

He’s busy thinking about this when Negan moves forward. The other man’s hand bumps his wrist, and he grits his teeth and hisses in pain. On instinct, he whips his hand up to look at the source of the twinging. His fingers are still a little swollen from the actual injury, but other than that, there’s no major difference. Still, that doesn’t stop it from aching.

And when he looks over his puffy fingers and sees Negan’s eyes wide and apologetic, he actually melts. The big, bad leader with all his stubborn rules and gruff behaviors…the guy who killed another man for trying to rape Sasha…the same one who led Rick out into the fray with him, took his hand and pulled him through a torrential downpour, led him to his daughter, is looking at him like he just broke his wrist himself.

And Rick feeds right into it. His eyebrows curl upward, and his mouth falls open, and he shakes his head. “I…Negan, don’t look at me like that.”

“I didn’t mean to…shit, that looks like it hurts.” Negan curses. “I’m sorry, Rick.”

“I told you.” Rick tries. “It’s fine. It startled me more than anything.”

“Bullshit.” Negan frowns. “You gotta prop that thing up, put ice on it. Get some rest and shit.”

Rick shakes his head. “Can’t do that, Negan. These people are countin’ on me. You’re countin’ on me.”

“Oh, please.” Negan rolls his eyes. “This place went two fucking days without you. I think they can handle a couple more while you focus on making that shit stop looking like it’s about to pop.” He nods to Rick’s swollen fingers.

Rick isn’t convinced, but he also knows Negan’s more stubborn than he is. Obviously, the guy’s going to keep trying.

“Look, Shane’s got a couple days before the next expedition. Let him take over for a little bit, and you be a lazyass for a while, alright?”

Rick scowls. “I can handle this, Negan.”

“Yeah,” Negan shrugs, “you probably can. But don’t make me make this a fucking order.”

He doesn’t want to keep arguing, but at the same time, it doesn’t feel right. With all that’s happened, he isn’t sure that sitting on his ass is a good thing. Not long ago, he’d been out there rescuing his daughter, and now, he gets to sit there while his people do all the work around the floor? It just isn’t fair to leave all the work to everyone else.

“I’m about to make it an order, Rick.”

“You’re gonna, either way.” Rick glares at him. “Just get it over with.”

“You fucking know what? Be that way.” Negan rounds on him, sweeping in close. He glances down into Rick’s eyes, and through his own stern gaze, Rick is compelled to look right back up into Negan’s. Like some sort of weird snake charmer shit, Negan cocks his head, and Rick mirrors it. He smirks, licks his lips, and Rick swears he sees the man’s eyes drift down to his mouth, before he steps back. “It’s an order. I demand you to elevate and ice your hand, and if I catch you cleaning up so much as one mess, your ass is mine.”

“Jesus, Negan.” Rick tries, unable to hide the rasp in his voice. “Make it sound that way, why don’t you?”

“You heard me.” Negan lilts, before pulling an about-face and starting back toward the stairs. “I’ll let Shane and your kidlets know.”

Rick sighs, but doesn’t say anything. He isn’t sure he has words for what he’s feeling right now, anyway. Today has already been so overwhelming with Shane’s appearance that thinking about it’s a little disorienting. In all honesty, it probably isn’t a terrible idea for Rick to pop a squat somewhere and relax. And knowing Shane, he isn’t going to mind being given the chance to be the boss for a while.

\--- --- --- --- ---

“No, seriously.” Michonne’s voice is like warm honey—thick and inviting and so comforting. Rick misses all the time he’d spent on the ship talking to her. At present, they’re standing by one of the few open areas where they can see the night sky through the window. Denise has long-since shown up with a sling for Rick’s arm so that elevating it shouldn’t be an issue. Still, he plans on obeying Negan’s request (he refuses to call it an order), but this seems like a relaxing enough thing to be doing, so in his own mind, he is being obedient. “It’s right there.”

“I’m tellin’ you, Michonne.” Rick argues. “This is an entirely different set of stars from where we lived before. We do not have our own North Star. Hell, I’m not sure we have our own North or South or East or West here. That was all stuff made to justify position on Earth.”

“You never know, though.” Michonne shrugs. “It’s strange enough that we found another planet to run away to. Don’t see why it’d be crazy for the constellations here to be similar. This place is almost just like earth in every other sense. Speaking of which, what was it like out there?”

Yeah, everyone knows Rick’s been out of the terrarium. He hadn’t seen fit to keep it a secret. He’s kept the rest of the details to himself by Negan’s request, but the instant the other man gives him permission to tell the truth, he’s going to. Despite his understanding of Negan’s reasons for not saying anything to everyone, that doesn’t mean it sits with him any better to keep them out of the loop. Once it’s safe to be honest, he’s going to do so.

However, that doesn’t mean he has to leave Michonne’s question totally unanswered. That said, he casts a warm smile her way. “Rainy. So rainy that I couldn’t see. We wore these goofy space suits, and the water was comin’ down so hard we were stumblin’ around blind for a while.”

“Jesus.” Michonne says. “I’m glad you still found Judith. It’s crazy to think she was gone for so long out there.”

“I know.” Just thinking about that makes Rick’s heart sink. “She’s so much stronger than I gave her credit for.”

“Hey, dumbass.” Shane’s voice interrupts them both. When Rick turns around to look at him, he sees an exasperated glare. “You’re supposed to be on bed rest.”

“I’m not on bed rest.” Rick snorts. “Negan just wants me to take it easy.”

“Yeah, in bed.” Shane snorts right back. “What’re you guys doin’, anyway?”

It’s as Rick’s about to explain it to Shane that things take a turn. In what feels like an instant, Judith is right back at Rick’s side. She’s got her father’s good hand in hers once more, and she’s gaping fearfully up at him.

“Judy, what’s wrong?” Rick drops to his knees. He can feel Shane’s and Michonne’s concerned stares on him.

“Something’s wrong, Daddy!” She sobs. “I was asleep and then I woke up and it went away!”

“What went away?” Rick swallows nervously. “It’s okay, baby. Tell me what went away.”

“Someone’s body! Their sounds went away! I’m scared for them, Daddy…”

Rick honestly has no clue what his daughter’s talking about. But when he looks to Shane and Michonne for answers, the latter seems to understand. She crouches next to Rick.

“Judith, sweetie. Where did the sounds disappear from?” Her eyes search Judith’s for any answers.

“Under us.” The little blonde whimpers. “The new place.”

“Alright.” Michonne nods. “Thank you, honey. You’re very brave to tell me. Now, why don’t you go find your brother? Stay with him until we get back.”

Judith doesn’t seem content with that request, but she obeys regardless. She wipes tears from her eyes, accepts a smooch on her forehead from Michonne, and then darts back to the apartment she and Carl have been sleeping in. When Rick glances back at Michonne, she’s already opening her mouth to explain.

“I think she’s saying someone died.”

Everyone who knows about Rick and Michonne's friendship knows that she is one of the only people he will tell about everything. He's spent most of today explaining what he knows about Judith's condition to her. So naturally, Michonne knows what the little girl is sensing, and amazingly, she can hone right in on it. There's a reason Rick trusts her so well. And unlike most, she hasn't pushed for him to explain what caused Judith's blindness. She just knows that Judith is in a very unique situation.

Rick’s throat feels as if it’s shrinking. One day into his ordered ‘rest’, and things are already going awry. At least it’s not on his floor. ‘Under us’ probably means one of the lower floors. As far as Rick knows, Terminus is the only one with people on it below them, so he’s gonna go with that one.

“Let’s go see what’s goin’ on.” Rick decides aloud. “We’ll let Negan know if what you think happened really did.”

“Now, wait a minute, Rick.” Shane frowns, nodding to Rick’s arm. “I’m under strict orders to take any and all workload off of you.”

“I won’t work.” Rick shrugs. “I’m not gonna be able to sleep knowin’ that someone died and it affected my daughter, though. Negan can just have my ass or whatever for breakin’ his rule.”

Shane just rolls his eyes. “Jesus, you’re a pain in the ass. Glad to have you back.”


End file.
